


Loco Buri

by Krivoklatsko



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-23
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:32:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krivoklatsko/pseuds/Krivoklatsko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luxana's conscription could leave Garen in the shadow of his sister's ghost. A curse on Katarina's sister leaves the family's honor in her hands. The Second Rune War is about to assure mutual destruction. And yet, Love Can Bloom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Love Can Bloom](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/8690) by Anonymous. 



Hard labor had washed blood from the streets of Noxus. And as petals fell from the monarchy, it became apparent that the City-State had only its thorns to define it. Even still, people turned to the arts and civility. Military men, the new socialites, found themselves sitting beside well-to-do wives in concert halls, hard asses flattening the wrinkles left by nobles.

Men like Colonel Marcus Du Couteau had only the reminders of a home. So he sat beside himself in a dance studio, watching his twin daughters join their classmates against a mirror. The wealthy dead were buried in his coffers during the revolution, putting him in the odd position of unfortunate wealth; And beyond that, of unfortunate importance: He was needed by a power that had survived what the royal class could not.

The twins knew only that their father loved them very much, and would spare no force to ensure their emergence at the top of a new world. For men in Noxus, that meant becoming an officer. For women, it meant marrying one.

One twin slapped the other, a result of another quarrel Marcus would never understand. He sighed.

“Cassiopeia. You know better.”

“Daddy, I'm Katarina! She's Cassie!”

They both pointed to the other. Neither had worn the colored ribbons he'd told them to.

“Your mother will be very upset when she finds out about this,” he murmured.

Evaine’s return was no threat to the girls. Katarina and Cassie had not been told why the healers and nurses were no longer needed at home. They had some vague concept of a hole in their life, nothing more. The result was a pair that grasped at every sensation that evoked their mother’s essence. That essence had been evoked by the earrings their dance instructor wore yesterday. Today, she wore a warm smile to support Marcus’ cold stare.

“They're just being young, sir,” the instructor smiled.

“The young die first in our time,” Marcus murmured.

And indeed, many men had lost more than a wife. The instructor only nodded, respectfully. But Marcus had his attention on his ring, an onyx rose passed through his wife's family. Katarina saw it tremble on his still finger, and knew from experience that her father would soon be busy. The instructor saw only his mournful expression.

“We won't be starting for another fifteen minutes, Colonel,” she suggested. “If you would like some time, I can watch them for you.”

Marcus accepted her suggestion with a forced smile, and left through the doors to the rest of the Academy. It was not until the instructor turned her back that Katarina followed. She slipped through the door, tracking his trench coat around a corner. But when she leaned to see, it was not he that caught her attention. He was speaking to someone.

“You're taking a risk, coming here.”

Marcus' back blocked Katarina's view. But she heard a woman's voice answer.

“I know. Prince Raschallion is challenging the High Command on his royal claim. They're clashing with the Raedsel Guard as we speak.”

Her tone was a noble’s notch above pleading. Marcus respected neither.

“Then the Raedsell will kill him. You made a mistake, ordering him to act,” Marcus growled.

“I didn’t,” she hissed. “That’s the point. But the Grey Order has a plan to rescue him. I’m worried he’ll survive.”

Marcus' silence conveyed his knowledge. The woman handed him something.

“This is an order for a ' _random_ ' sweep of houses in the Ivory Ward. Your agents will find evidence leading to his capture there. I have ensured it. Kill him. They'll have to promote you, and you will be more useful to me as a general than he was as a prince. Just sign here, and-”

“Emilia,” he interrupted.

The woman was silent, her attention gained.

“I want to see her.”

Marcus' voice had grown heavier through Noxus' turmoil. The monarchy had printed excess money until only favors could be used as currency. But all friendships were lost in the political storm. Now power was the currency of the realm, and it was Emilia who needed Marcus’ help.

“Briefly,” she conceded.

Katarina stepped around the corner, trying to see the face of this woman. Marcus shifted his weight and breathed. This was not the tense inhale his duties evoked. By his tone, she understood that he was relieved of all worries and duties. Katarina had seen a soldier breathe his last that way on street cobble.

But the change in Emilia's voice was far more literal. It was a different woman speaking.

“Marcus? How long has it been?”

“Two years,” he murmured.

“The children?”

“They're safe. They're fine. We're at their dance school.”

“Where? Take me.”

But Marcus hugged her, instead. Katarina saw her mother’s face over his shoulder.

“Mommy!”

Evaine discarded Marcus for her daughter, and Katarina felt the embrace of a woman she had not seen for years. The hug was hindered by a shiny brooch that her mother gripped like death. She clutched a gem that branched out between her fingers with three golden prongs.

“Katarina,” her mother hummed. “Your mother loves you, Katarina. Always remember that.”

Marcus crouched beside them, his fatigue giving way to concern.

“Evaine. The Raedsel are out in force today. They'll kill you if they see that brooch.”

“I told you, not in front of the children, Marcus,” she scolded.

But Marcus leaned in closer and hissed, “They won't give a damn.”

Evaine ignored him. She had precious time with Katarina to stare into her eyes and see how she had grown, then an invaluable moment to kiss her head, and premium air to breathe “Never forget. You are loved. Tell your sister when you see her.”

And she sent her daughter away. But Katarina knew better. Her father had taken command of Noxus’ Extra-Military Espionage, Sabotage, and Intelligence Sector. The Chief Spy's daughter knew the value of secrets. She slowed at the corner and peered around, expecting one last sight of her mother. Instead she saw another woman standing in her place, wearing the shiny brooch.

All of her descriptive features were the same as Evaine’s, only off by a generation of noble breeding. The last generation had cared about the purity of Noxian blood. But the differences were not slight enough for Marcus. He looked at this new woman with contempt.

“Too ' _Briefly_ ,' Emilia,” he growled.

She flinched spite at him.

“My time is valuable. I have a world to rule, Marcus.”

“And I have a family to save. Disappear before someone makes you, L-”

“-Ah.”

She stopped him with a finger.

“You aren't the only spy here, Marcus,” she whispered. And her eyes flicked to Katarina, making contact like a slap as they met.

Katarina turned and ran, hoping to at least escape her father's detection. She returned to the studio confused, and had forgotten entirely to tell Cassiopeia anything good about herself. It was never her priority.

The instructor clapped her hands together, demanding attention.

“Oh! Katarina! There you are. Back in line, please. Alright, girls. We're ready to begin. Miss Hawkmoon, quiet please. That means you, Nila. Thank you. Ok, girls, today, we- Cassiopeia, please do not hit your sister.”

“But she hit me first,” Cassie protested.

“Yes, dear. But that was five minutes ago. Focus on me, please. Today we will learn how to pirouette. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Katarina had seen boys wrestling in other parts of the academy, and cared more for the sport than for her current outfit. But the thought made her wonder if boys would accept her presence. She turned to the mirror. She looked like her mother, red hair falling to pale shoulders; emerald eyes cutting the glass. But her mother was slim with some wrinkles and silver hair. Katarina had not yet developed the curves of puberty, nor the height she desired. She was distracted from her reflection by the sudden motion of her instructor. Her attention was gained.

“There. See, girls? Would anyone like to try?”

Katarina had found her calling. She struck her starting pose, rear foot ready to push off, arms held in an awkward circle before her. Knees bent and feet crossed, she fidgeted against the unfamiliar clothing. But she wanted to have the grace that had just stolen her attention.

"You don't have to look so serious,” her instructor chided. “It's everyone's first time here, girls. It doesn't matter if you can't-”

She could. Katarina sprang, pressing off her hind foot and pulling in her arms. She whirled, unnatural grace twirling crimson locks once, twice, three, four, five, six, seven times and ending with arms wide and posture beaming like her smile.

  
  


The instructor was silent, and wore a horrified excitement she usually reserved for the sight of blood.

"Oh,” she finally gasped. “Colonel Du Couteau!”

She sought him on the bench, but remembered he had stepped outside.

“Colonel! One moment, girls!”

The door had barely shut when Cassiopeia turned to the girl next to her and whispered, " _Do it now, while the teacher's gone._ "

The third girl, Nila Hawkmoon, was a disposable friend. She followed Cassie’s orders out of line, tapped Katarina on the shoulder, and with her attention gained, stated, "You aren’t special, you know. I'd think you were smart if you could actually say _Pir-ou-ette._ But you're just dumb _._ My mom said I’m going to be a Lady when I grow up.And my mom said a real Lady has to know how to talk, not dance, like your mom did. If you're too stupid to talk right then you can't be a lady. Can you do that, dummy? Can you say 'I can do a _Pirouette_?'"

“Of course she can!”

The girl at the end of the line always came to Katarina's defense. But she was too tall, and looked like a boy, so, “Shut up! No one likes you,” was the near unanimous response.

Katarina only balked, her swollen ego pushing aside her better judgment.

"I can do a Piru-" she licked her lips. "Pyra... Piro-"

"Idiot! You're just a Colonel's daughter! _I'm_ house Hawkmoon! We were _nobles_ before the war! My mom says I can marry whoever I want and they'll have to do everything I say. But _you_ -"

Katarina's fist cracked loose lips against teeth, knocking the other girl to the ground. True to insults, she did not punch like a lady. Cassiopeia remained in her sister's shadow, safe from retribution, while Katarina stood over her fallen opponent and yelled, "Can you say 'No boys will ever date my broken face?'"

" _P_ _irouette_ , stupid!"

Katarina's pride was shoveled into the fires of rage. She leaped, arm cocked for a second blow, and was met with a foot to her face. She regained her senses at Cassiopeia's feet. The loud-mouthed girl was rising from the ground.

"I'm going to tell on you, stupid! You're getting kicked out, just you see. Mrs.-"

Katarina heard none of it. The solid rush of adrenaline had muffled her ears and turned the world around her red. She saw only the needle holding up Cassiopeia's hair, the clear trajectory from her hand to an exposed neck, and the opportunity for the perfect turn. By the time it was over, Katarina was frozen in latent guilt. No word of warning had been uttered. The other girl gripped at her throat, eyes bulging in shock as air bubbles popped blood around the hairpin. Sucking and gasping instead of calling for help, she only staggered toward the door, disoriented, falling to her knees just short of it.

The door opened into her face, cracking against her skull and knocking the now corpse to its back. The adults' conversation finished with Du Couteau confiding, "-always wanted a son."

Katarina had trouble moving from her follow through. Her throwing arm seemed frozen in space, extended in perfect form. She could see in her father's eyes that she had ruined another of his plans- that he was upset and surprised. But he was sad, not angry. Because the plan was her. The screams around her did not catch her attention. She knew her father could fix this. The cogs were turning in his head, and when he smiled, she realized that through the shock of what she'd done, past the error of her ways and the repercussions of her actions, he had already laid out a new path for her. He no longer bore the disappointment of twin daughters. He didn't need a boy. And neither did she.

  
  


That was the norm for a decade. Marcus had many favors to call, but he did not waste them putting Katarina back in school. Anyone dumb enough to marry a murderer had already died. Assassins and survivalists raised Katarina among the wolves of humanity, and every martial science and art was nailed into the coffin of her schooling. Her tone was an insulting pride every time she called Cassiopeia her dear _sister_.

Marcus Du Couteau donned a general's lapels later than intended. But he'd spun a web around the grand soirees of his estate, and caught the ears of all who mattered. His presence was a once-in-a-lifetime event, so he ensured that each party was as well.

Tonight's guests were diplomats from the nations of Valoran. They sat around him at tonight’s table, a black wood found only in Noxus, and saw him framed in tonight's painting. Oil and canvas spanned the wall behind him, holding the head of each nation’s divine pantheon, arrayed for war and charging at a defenseless woman. Tonight’s humor was dry like tonight’s wine.

Ambassador Laurent, of Demacia, smirked across the table. He was Marcus’ oldest friend from Noxus' oldest enemy. The representatives of Piltover, Zaun, and Freljord were also sharing that side of the table. General Du Couteau was accompanied by the twin beauties Katarina and Cassiopeia, his wife still “feeling ill.”

Wine graced Marcus' throat, and he finished his oratory with the voice of a decanter.

"And from that day onward," he intoned, "I never once doubted that my two daughters would bring me more pride than any son could."

His daughters, seated on either side of him, nodded in unison, playing up the twin act. The symmetry added to the intimidation.

"If it wasn't for Katarina,” Couteau finished, “I would be the last great swordsman of my line."

The Demacian ambassador, Laurent, smiled at the memory of their last fencing match. With a nod to Katarina, he suggested, “We should introduce our daughters some time.”

But General Du Couteau did not notice. He eyed the Diplomat from Piltover for the third time that night. And for the third time her face beheld a mixture of guilt and shock, a brief flash before smiling and turning into her food. Otherwise, she was silent and reserved, hiding her face under the brim of a purple top hat.

General Du Couteau raised his upturned hand to present another topic for the night's dinner, a rehearsed signal that one of his daughters interrupted promptly.

"For the record..."

Katarina's enthusiasm had dwindled over the many rehersals. She monotoned, "I can _Pirouette_."

The table erupted with chuckles, grabbing at any excuse to dispel the fear of Katarina's first kill. Marcus beamed at her with pride, and she basked in his attention.

"I could not have asked for a better child.”

His whisper was just loud enough for the audience. Katarina blinked her well adorned eyes at him, her symmetrical beauty and deadly grace laying bare. An unblemished face had taken the family far in life, and served her just as well.

"You are too kind, father. I do only what you have taught me."

Marcus tried to parry and riposte the compliment, but again, the Piltover Ambassador caught his attention. Her fervent manipulation of cutlery betrayed her. Katarina caught notice and engaged her in a conversation about tracking, something she recalled the Sheriff/Ambassador was known for. It was then, when her eyes lifted from her plate, that Marcus saw it. Sherrif Caitlyn of Piltover had not eaten.

"Marcus, those golems you have in the hallway...?"

General Du Couteau turned to the speaker, Ambassador Laurent- Demacia- and grinned.

"Those unusual little things- where'd you get those?"

With a customary nod to another diplomat, Marcus answered, "A merchant in Zaun. You mean the statues with the torches that burn black and red?"

The diplomat from Zaun chimed in, "Hextech Corporation, right? They’re the paragon of our ideology right now. I guess everyone’s Five-Year Plan worked out."

Zaun nodded the last comment to the ambassador from the Institute of War, Ram Steed. The latter held up a copy of the Journal of Justice, latest issue.

“Just barely,” he admitted. “January First, 5 CLE, and we rolled today’s into Noxus. That’s every city-state now. Just, uh… Don’t ask about The League.”

That produced some light chuckles.

Freljord had not spoken for a while. He was smiling lazily across the table at Cassiopeia, his abdomen gyrating in his chair. Cassiopeia, a disinterested grin on her face, was pretending to listen in on Katarina and the Sherrif from Piltover. She had not studied swordplay, but her footwork was unrivalled.

"Um... if it's alright…?"

Several conversations stopped at once to address Caitlyn, the Sheriff in the purple hat. She swallowed- fear, not food- and met eyes with General Du Couteau.

"If I might be excused..."

Perfect Piltover pronunciation. Marcus nodded, "of course," and turned to Katarina. The look in his eyes said everything he had told her before dinner.

"She is not who she seems. You know what to do. Make me proud."

But he spoke for an audience. The guests only heard, "Would you be so kind as to escort the Madam from Piltover?"

Katarina, her tongue like a dagger on silk, smiled.

"My pleasure."


	2. Chapter 2

Psionics is the science of extra-cranial thought, or of phenomena outside the physical body generated by thought alone. It is distinct from the arcane sciences, all of which rely on mana harvested from nature. Psionics is an act of human will.

Luxanna Crownguard knew in this moment that she lacked willpower. But she was not alone. Behind her eyes burned the faint, blue tinge of another’s presence. Summoner Lessa Carin was an archon of psionics. And through her connection to Luxanna’s mind, she was a terrified young girl in the bowels of the enemy’s estate.

Katarina Du Couteau paced ahead of them with terrifying grace, her hips swaying with the discipline of a sword fighter and the lust of a dancer. She could make a statue turn its head, but for now mere human servants broke discipline, bowing but peeking as she passed. Her black, leather dress was a second, sexier skin.

Luxanna Crownguard eyed the needles holding up the bun of Katarina's hair and found difficulty breathing. Every part of her mind was trying to block out the fact that she was in Noxus, in the house of General Du Couteau, in the belly of the beast. And here, in front of her, was the Murderer, Katarina Du Couteau. Katarina was older, older than Luxana’s grown brother. Garen Crownguard had enlisted at 16. Five years later, he was in the Dauntless Vanguard. Luxanna had only been thirteen when Demacia called her from a convent to a barracks. A year of training later, she swallowed at the sight of Katarina turning a question over her shoulder.

"I hear you've made quite a name for the Law in Piltover. Catherine, was it?"

The menace in Katarina’s tone was always present. Every word she spoke to strangers sounded like an accusation. Luxanna reassured herself that the accusation was not fatally knowledgeable this time.

 _Answer fast_ , Carin growled in her skull.

"Caitlyn," Lux shouted. A fake accent faltered under haste. Katarina laughed once, like a strike. But it echoed down the hallway. She knew.

 _Stay calm,_ Carin ordered.

A wave of Katarina’s hand stopped Luxanna’s heart. But she only meant to highlight the golems lining the hallway. Dull, green gears glowed on their chests, the Hextech Corporation’s logo. Katarina's voice snapped Luxanna back into the present.

"Father demands that I brag about the lighting he bought from Zaun. He had to sell his summer home to pay for it."

Lux recognized a simple Rayleigh Scattering effect at first glance, an arcane trick she taught herself. Du Couteau had paid too much. That knowledge, her skill with the arcanities of light, was the reason for her conscription. It was the reason Carin chose her for this mission. It was the source of her disguise as an older and better respected woman. But it would not save her from Katarina's blades.

"They're lovely," Lux lied, accent in place. She remembered her outfit, the emblem of the People's State of Piltover on her hat, and saw again the knowledge in Katarina's smile.

 _She doesn’t know_ , Carin growled. _If you panic, I will leave you there, I swear it. Keep going._

Luxanna prepared her accent again, trying to find words her disguise would use.

“Couldn’t the capital have been put towards a more... collective effort?”

She gestured: to the golemns, to the unseen servants holding trays and their tongues in every hall. Katarina scoffed and rolled her eyes in perfect symmetry. Lux would have envied the beauty if she wasn't so terrified. Their walk continued past the study, the target, and she felt her knees failing. A hidden room behind the third bookshelf was filled with documentation of Noxian military forces.

 _One task at a time,_ Carin hummed. _Get away from Katarina first._

"The bathroom is just here,” Katarina nodded.

She waved to a doorway just past the study, adding, "Gentlemen on the left. Ladies on the right. We're too poor for signs."

Luxanna walked quickly from Katarina's prying eyes and stabbing sarcasm, and ran for the nearest stall. Secure, she pulled a summoning charm from her skirt pocket and attached it to the stall door's interior. General Laurent, The Demacian Ambassador, had done the same in the men's room only hours before.

Lux ripped off her purple bodice and skirt, inverting them and relying with desperate hope on the fusion of magic and machine that made them work. The techmaturgical components whirred to life, and in a moment of spatial anomaly, the clothing unfolded into a military servant's livery. Heeled boots became dress shoes. Magic focused. In a short few seconds, Luxanna felt the tingling around her subside, pressure on her ears. Now she was a handsome, young Noxian soldier. The flowing, brown hair of Sherrif Caitlyn was replaced with a man's, cropped and black.

Satisfied with her disguise, Luxanna gripped the mounted charm. A jarring bolt of magic shot through her, and she felt herself flash through space to another stall. By the great powers of someone else’s magic and engineering, she was now a man in the men’s room.

The process disagreed with her already knotted stomach. She turned and retched, to Carin’s disappointment.

 _The second time is worse_ , was the Summoner’s way of consolation.

Luxanna had worried about sharing her mind. The concept was vaguely defined in her briefings, and she understood only that she would have no secrets, no private memory, for the rest of her life. The embarrassment burned as she regained her composure. Her efforts to stay calm felt childlike beside Carin’s reserved thoughts. In the overlap between them was a mantra, though, and Carin spared her thoughts to recite with the younger girl a verse from The Measured Tread. A military convent had been Luxanna’s childhood; martial edicts, her lullabies.

_I am the iron constitution of Demacia. I bring justice from the solid foundation of moral righteousness. I can’t do this._

Luxanna could not reserve her thoughts, but the lack of response told her that was not a mutual problem.

"So far, so good," Lux chimed aloud. The mask of optimism fooled no one. She exited the restroom quickly, outrunning her doubts and Katarina's glare.

_She’ll be waiting for me._

_It won’t take long_ , Carin answered.

Luxanna’s fears blinded them both on her route to the study. It was Carin who made them focus.

Bookshelves and trinkets met nice furniture. A spinning globe of Runeterra hung from the ceiling in an orbit with planets that Luxanna didn't know. She had never studied the solar system, and noted for later that the planet next to hers was lavender. She power-walked under it to a large, black tome on one of the shelves.

_In Defense of the Ancients, by Ezreal, State Archaeologist of the People's State of Piltover._

The City-State was fond of long titles. Lux tugged at it and stepped back, watching the bookshelf slide silently aside. Before her now was the trap that had warranted her mission. A door, with a keyhole that could fit no key, stood waiting. Marcus Du Couteau's ring held a small, black gem that satisfied the light-lock. If unsatisfied, it would keep the offending finger. Luxanna breathed.

 _Take your time,_ Carin mumbled- her first kind words.

_Stay positive._

Luxanna’s finger slipped into darkness, and she focused her magic, responding to the probing, redirecting every wavelength as she identified it. And as she worked, the image completed itself in her head. The pattern was not random.

_Is that what I think it is?_

Carin did not explain her outburst. But Luxanna saw in her mind the image that formed. Marcus Du Couteau's ring held the hologram of a rose.

The lock clicked, and the door swung away from Luxanna’s finger, granting her entry to another study, nearly identical. The same planets hung over a table bearing a map of Valoran. Metal figurines on it gave away troop positions, while glowing arrows indicated movements. She recognized the border between Noxus and Demacia by its garrison. Carin was broadcasting the sights and sounds to an external memory, a thousand miles away, in Demacia Proper.

Luxanna moved her eyes over the bookshelves, _slowly_ , as Carin instructed. _Summoner's Code_ , _Eevie's Rose,_ _Ionian Fervor_ , _Tales from Freljord_ \- Lux circled around the desk and slid open its top drawer. There, in the center, was a single envelope, already opened. She separated the broken Seal of Piltover and slipped out the letter, spreading it open to read.

_Mr. Du Couteau,_

_I am insulted. The People's State of Piltover does not concern itself with war or politics. No, I am not a spy. I am many things, but your sources are wrong. I am a Sheriff and an Ambassador. Rescinding your invitation is, quite frankly, a mistake. I hope that you can overcome your paranoia sometime in the future and allow our nations to continue a relationship that has been greatly beneficial to our people. The revolution continues._

_-Madame Sheriff Caitlyn_

Luxanna stared, not comprehending the severity of her situation. But Carin let her sorrow and pity creep through, organizing Luxanna’s thoughts. Caitlyn, her disguise, had never been invited.

_I’m so sorry, Luxanna._

And Carin’s voice, for once, was honest.

Luxanna knew only by words what would happen next. Psionics was the blade of the Demacian Security Bureau, and sometimes, they had to cut their own. Carin had to make sure no one would ever link Luxanna to her homeland.

She had been warned this might happen, but no one warned her about the pain. Her head pulsed into an ache, and her face warped under unnatural forces. She felt invisible hands sculpting her features, gripping and tearing muscles in a rush job. Memories were stolen from her crib by tall shadows, and painted over with dripping watercolors from far to the east.

Luxanna did not know how far her screams carried, or for how long, but she knew what had been done. Her life had been hastily stolen, vast swaths removed and flung around in a whirl. Lies were forced into the vacuum.

But Luxanna could remember Carin. One memory remained, when they had first met, when Carin had spoken her first promise- her first lie: _I will protect you._

Beyond this, Luxanna only remembered that she was in danger. The motion in the corner of her eyes told her that much. She propped herself up by the desk. The secret door stood open, empty. The relief of that emptiness was cut by a dagger at her throat. Katarina’s body slid up around her like a feather boa constrictor, its hissing focusing into human speech.

"Shhh."

Luxanna felt the older girl’s smile spreading around her ear, consuming her attention. She trembled, alone. Her throat trembled against the steel as the Sinister Blade of Noxus finally spoke in a sing-song rhyme.

“ _Tinker, tailor,_

 _Soldier,_ spy _!”_

Luxanna had been conscripted. She had screamed. She had sat through briefings. Silently, she had screamed. She had predicted her lonely and uneventful death. At night, into a pillow, she had screamed. The other children disappeared weekly, never to return. Their crying at night dwindled to the silence of a cold barracks. Luxanna had seen the next wave marching in the day she was deployed. She had screamed to them.

But try as she might, she remembered none of the details. There was only a vast history of her pain.

Her next memory was up-to-date: Katarina was hitting her in the back. She coughed up a tooth and spit them onto the table.

Luxanna had blacked out. She was tied to a chair now, in the same office. Her throat was raw. Katarina’s knuckles were bloody. Luxanna spit more of her blood, and more of her teeth, onto the table. The pain was nothing after her training.

“She’s all yours, dad,” Katarina hummed.

Luxanna had not seen General Du Couteau enter- had not seen the clock turn to midnight. She could only turn her head enough to watch his wine stir in a casual hand. His voice reverberated like the pounding in her face.

"I thought that was a wonderful party, Katarina. You?"

“I prefer interior meetings,” she grumbled.

Marcus sighed.

"Yes, well, we can't be an anti-social state.”

He circled the desk, setting a periodical down and taking his own seat. Luxanna hid in the headlines, seeking distractions from the pain.

_Journal of Justice_

_Jan 1_ _st_ _, 5CLE._

_Five Years Later, Memoirs of a Revolution._

_Eight years ago, today, the last noble claim to be pressed against Noxus was quelled. To mark the defeat of Prince Raschallion, General Boram Darkwill himself-_

General Du Couteau’s glass obscured the rest of the article. He waited for Luxanna to meet his gaze before speaking. His eyes had the same quality that made his ring so valuable. From any angle, they blazed like kindlegems. A dark, brown fire leapt from them like spears. And when he could tell the stare had penetrated, the rumble of his voice shook her.

“I hope this hasn't spoiled _your_ experience at the Du Couteau residence. I like the last impression to be the best."

Luxanna couldn't react. Paralyzed by Katarina's grip on her neck, she only shivered, wide-eyed. Her disguise had already faltered. All that remained was the clothing. Marcus Du Couteau nodded at it.

"Did you steal this? Am I missing a soldier?"

Luxanna had stood at attention and memorized her nation's values. She had adopted a code of honor and assumed her ordered duties, every day knowing she would be sent away to die. In her memory, the books were now blank. The values, bulleted lists too blurred to read. The nation… Her mind kept focusing on one she knew to be wrong.

"Answer me," Marcus growled.

"I don' ‘no any’ing," Luxanna shivered. Her tongue and teeth and face weren’t responding. Some of it was numb, some missing.

"Here’s a clue. You're a spy," Marcus egged. "Who sent you?"

"I don’ ‘no,” she sobbed.

Marcus finished his drink, and let the taste fade, so as not to share it.

“Kat. She’s bleeding. I thought I raised you better than that,” he scolded.

He offered a handkerchief over the desk. Katarina gripped and immobilized the younger girl’s chin with a gloved hand. She wiped with slow, controlled stokes, like a barber with a razor. Luxanna could only breathe. She felt the cured skin of another animal instead of Katarina’s fingers, and the expensive fabric of General Du Couteau’s generosity in victory.

Her “’angk you” was instinctive.

“Of course,” Marcus smiled. “That was a flawless disguise, by the way. I never would have expected that from someone your age.”

When Katarina released her, Luxanna nodded another thanks. The flattery was not fixing her memory. But Du Couteau was a man of legendary presence. He pulled a Zaunite cigar from a desk drawer, then clipped and lit it to ready his punchline.

"So are you a light mage, or a lite mage?"

The pun soared high over his company. He sighed.

“Kat. The uniform,” he ordered.

Understanding dawned when Luxanna felt her clothing being tugged at. She was the only unarmed person in the room, and her head still throbbed from the beating Katarina delivered. It did not take long for her to comply.

In the cool away from her flesh, the livery reverted to a purple bodice and dress. The symbol of Piltover traced itself over a corner of the bodice. The ectoplasm left over from the lost mass shimmered on the skirt. Katarina brushed it away, and they watched as the remnant shimmered into nothingness. Marcus Du Couteau grunted through his cigar.

"You can buy anything in Zaun, as long as you pay ten times the price."

Luxanna hugged herself, trying to cover her shame, and could only watch with mounting fear as Du Couteau relaxed in his chair, lifting his feet to his desk.

“You don’t have any honor to preserve," he grumbled. “I’m in a suit, Kat’s in a dress. You don’t have a uniform. Let’s not pretend we’re soldiers right now. No ideology. You’re a guest in my house. So tell us where you’re from. What’s your home like?”

Luxanna shook, avoiding the truth and his gaze for more than the sake of honor. But the word honor was tumbling through severed lines in her mind. Quietly, below a whisper, she recited the Justice Pledge to herself.

"Why are you here?" Marcus repeated.

_For the honor of my family,_

"What do you do with your life?"

_I swear to clash my sword in defense of every true-blooded…_

Pain wracked her mind. Marcus’ voice brought her back.

"Why did you come here?"

_I shall be a messenger from the righteous to the fallen._

His mounting agitation turned a usually gravelly voice into a growl.

"What is your purposein my house?"

_To deliver justice upon those who would do evil, and to defend the weak._

" _What_ do you _want_ from us?"

"I wan’ a go home," she whispered. There were no hymns to comfort her. No slogan jumped from the Demacian Field Guide to her rescue. No verse from The Measured Tread was there to console her. Luxanna did not want glory or righteous vengeance. She wanted home. General Du Couteau wanted answers.

"And where," his softer voice asked, "is that?"

Her gaze rose from the ground, up over the desk, to meet his eyes again. She shivered and hugged her naked form. She had known she would die here. She had known she would die doing whatever her homeland asked. Luxanna shivered, and told the lie that had been bored into her skull. It slipped as if from Carin’s own lips.

"Ionia."

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Please! Don’t kill me!”

"Shut up!"

Katarina tugged, pulling Luxanna's shivering body through the doorway and out to the grounds. Night had fallen long before, inviting Runeterra's lightning bugs to swim in the fog around her and in the void above. Luxanna, blindfolded, was only aware of the grass- a wonderful contrast to the carpet on her skin. Katarina tugged again at Luxanna’s bound hands, dragging her face-up toward a maze in the garden.

"I don't want to die!"

"Shut up!"

Katarina tugged again, her dress preventing a full range of motion. She passed under the arch of the garden labyrinth, between two guards who looked away and thought of feeding their families. Katarina’s mind was still inside with her father.

"I don't understand," she was still saying.

Marcus' image hovered beside her, murmuring like wine drowning a cigar.

"Throw her in the sewer."

"But she'll drown."

Katarina tugged again. She couldn't think about it. She could do it as long as she focused on the image of her father setting down his drink and walking across the room to her. She could do it as long as she would "Make me proud, Katarina."

She had never taken pride in killing a defenseless person. Training mistakes and unchecked episodes of rage gnawed at her mind, but always hand-to-hand with regret. She had hurt many spies- interrogated them- but they always returned to their homeland alive. In hindsight, they always returned to her father alive. After that, she didn’t know.

"Please! Oh gods, please!"

"Shut UP!"

They had given the prisoner too long to recover, too many potions. She was speaking clearly and trying to escape. But Katarina couldn’t find it in her to apply more pain, not knowing it would be this person’s last moments. The grass turned to stone. An antique gate swung shut behind them, securing the family crypt. In ancient times, the maze above would confuse the spirits of the dead. The sewer entry, below, was modernization’s fault.

Luxanna shivered. The temperature had dropped noticeably in the presence of the dead, then again as they took the stairs from mausoleum to public utilities. Each stone step jarred Luxanna’s shoulders and ribs. Katarina was panting now, the exertion and stress shaking her resolve. They stopped near the sound of water, where the current sucked heat like blood from a wound. Gazing down, Katarina wondered what horrors had been dumped that made it reflect so perfectly. The image of her flawless face, of her symmetrical beauty, scared and unsure, looked up from the surface.

She turned away to remove Luxanna's blindfold. Lux squealed, trembling beyond control now, eyes flashing between daggers and water. Katarina waited for their eyes to meet, and in a sudden moment, couldn't tell who was more afraid.

Luxanna, with nothing to lose, spoke.

"I didn't have a choice! They took me! They told me it was for my family's honor. They told me I had to do it, that I was worthless if I had no honor. I just want to go home. I just want my life back! I know you’re a murderer, but I’m not! I never wanted to do this!"

Katarina dragged Luxanna to her feet against the stone wall. She leaned in close, demanding silent attention.

"Shut. Up."

Her blade punctuated, tapping the younger girl’s lips. Luxanna had said her piece. With a hand gripping her bound wrists, she could not escape. Luxanna's tears streamed freely, her knees clacking against each other. Katarina took an intentional breath, mantling the will to act- the authority and responsibility for what she was about to do.

"I never meant to kill anyone, either," she whispered. “It just happened. And when you’re good at killing, it’s the only thing people see in you.”

The knife slipped forward between Lux's arms, against her wrists, and paused.

"I didn’t want this."

The knife sawed at Luxanna’s binds. She gasped, still trembling, and watched with growing hope as the first wrap split. She tried pulling her arms apart, only to have Katarina immobilize her angrily.

"Three-Cuts' Brig knot. Hold still."

Katarina sawed at a second part, trying not to think about what she would tell her father. Lux gasped again as it split, no longer shaking. She was readying her escape. Oblivious, Katarina only cut, thinking that she was doing the right thing. The final tie popped, a light flashed, and Katarina found herself blinded in the darkness, and falling. Luxanna had pushed her, tripping her over her own dress. And Katarina was no longer holding her blade. Luxanna was grabbing at it, scraping the hilt against the ground somewhere that neither could see.

"No. Wai-!"

Luxanna swiped, and Katarina's face was perfect no more. She shrieked, scrambling backwards and falling into the water. The current gave her no introduction. She was lost seconds later, winding down the labyrinthine trap to Noxus' reservoir. Her head surfaced in darkness, and she gasped, kicking dressed legs to stay afloat. The only light that graced her was a minute later, when she saw the Hextech logo on a torch. And just beyond it, a drop. Her strength surged, and she kicked with all of her might, trying to reach up to the walkway. But it had been designed, and with good reason, not to let things escape. Katarina was only saved by a generous hand from the shadows. A man grabbed her and pulled hard, depositing her with a wet splat on safe ground.

Katarina wasted time coughing and breathing and cursing. A full minute- she’d counted- at a speed like that. There was no way she’d be able to rescind her generosity- to fix her mistake. The prisoner was too far gone. So her thoughts of spite focused instead on this new stranger.

His reflection in the water was darkness, save glowing slits in his helm- four, then eight when her vision swam. But she couldn’t focus her vision in time to make sense of that. Silent and dark, her savior turned and retreated into the shadows. _His loss_.

She thought of the reward her father would have offered if someone had rescued Cassie from the same perils. Then she thought again of stabbing that spy.

The walk back gave her time to ruminate on it. The stairs into her family crypt lifted her mood to more practical problems, like what to tell her father. Then her father’s shadow stopped her dead in the center of four graves.

“You didn’t expect me to kill her,” Katarina realized.

Marcus sharpened his mouth too much to call it a smile.

"No,” his shadow murmured, “But I expect you will next time.”

He approached another step into the lamp, where only his head was left in shadow. He planted a sword by its tip against the stone path.

“Some things can only be remembered by pain, Kat. Do you know what your grandfather taught me?”

“Fencing?”

She had learned, through pain, not to laugh at her own jokes, but was still disappointed that no one else did. Marcus cleared his throat.

"This is your grandfather’s sword. He trained war dogs for a living. There was one he kept for himself. He found that dog in the wild, cold and starved, patches of hair missing where its scars had knotted the skin too much. Its teeth were covered in infectious film, and its paws were calloused and scarred beyond usefulness, ears swollen with ticks. It had stopped in a hole and lain down to die when he found it. So he took it home and nursed it to health."

Katarina had heard that part of the story, and never understood why the unfinished tale was so important. Marcus continued.

"I named it ‘pooch.’ Pooch never bit us, or snap at us, or showed us any hostility- not even on the day dad made me slay him. The lesson was: No dog will bite the hand that feeds it.”

Katarina knew not to speak. Marcus came to terms with things one at a time, and spontaneously. She feared that disturbing his unpacking of baggage would just unpack it all at once on the offender. Grandfather had died that way.

Marcus finished, “That is the difference between dogs and men.”

Katarina nodded her understanding. The shadow of Marcus’ face seemed content. The addressing of his sorrows was complete.

"You were bested in the dark,” he noted. He stepped back into the shadows and raised his sword.

“You need to practice fighting blind.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Katarina breathed, calming her nerves.

“Ok. Ready.”

Their fencing lay two nights behind. She was sitting upright in an officer’s uniform and gripping her knees now, trying not to move more than the trundling carriage was making her. She wore the polished, gold lapels of a second lieutenant. In them were reflected the blazing eyes of a Summoner. Sander Grieve was crouching before her in the cabin, his hands wielding arcane mysteries around her eye. The bubbling of blood and the leathery stretch of skin was disturbing her senses, but it didn't hurt so much as itch. Muscles and bone slid like flotsam on a blood shore, snaking around nerves and tendons in the summoner's guided waves. The swelling around her eye had receded the day before, after a healer had sealed the wound to prevent infection. Now Grieve, a master of The Art, had the task of opening the wound to repair it. A sharp zip- the feel of skin splicing together- made Katarina's eyelid twitch and fidget without command. The pain subsided and she blinked under control again.

Grieve, his face barely visible under the elegant, black robes, blew on his hands, dispelling the green mist that had accumulated. He took a moment to adjust his cloak clasp, the emblem of Noxus.

"The wound is healed,” he rasped. Grieve was an unusual summoner. His magic molded flesh, but he did not wear a healer's markings. He bore no sigils on his shoulders, but his voice rasped like death. That meant enough to anyone who knew the evils that could be done with magic. Katarina leaned back into her chair while Grieve continued, “Allow me another moment to remove the scar."

"No,” she snapped. “Leave it."

Grieve chuckled, turning his commentary to Marcus.

“She certainly is your daughter.”

General Marcus Du Couteau glanced up from his espionage reports and nodded over his glasses to Grieve, beside him. But he was reading again before his smile faded. Grieve's attention remained. His interest in Katarina had begun at birth. Although the shadows disguised it, his gaze was on her for the entire ride.

"Still no magical aptitude?" Grieve asked.

Katarina drew her head back in offense.

“I learned a little in Bilgewater, thank you very much!”

She had learned sleight of hand, and made a great effort to tug on her thumb, then pulled it loose with an audible “pop” from her mouth. Grieve did not do the trick the dignity of watching further.

"Arr!” Katarina tried. “That be me lucky thumb, too.”

The thumb wiggled in silence.

"A pity," Grieve finally mumbled.

The carriage jerked to a stop at his words, knocking a sheet of paper from General Du Couteau's lap to the floor. Katarina reached it first, her hand opening to reveal the cheap thumb trick. But she stopped when the paper was in her hand. Marcus swiped it from her, hiding the view of its header: a blossoming, black rose. Before she could think about it, knocking sounded against the door.

"We're here, sir."

General Du Couteau slipped his papers into a leather folder and secured its clasp while the cab driver opened the door. Katarina was the first to step out into the Kalamanda City air. Grass, pollen, and wood chips lay flat on the earth, their smell rising. Kalamanda _Village_ , she reminded herself. She turned south and had to cover her eyes. The beam of Mount Targon's snowy peak was gazing down with power to match the afternoon sun. She swore through her squint, and felt her father's hand on her shoulder.

"I know, Kat. We'll only be here a few days."

Katarina grimaced, following Marcus and Grieve across the unpaved street to a tavern and Inn.

'Sudden Night Inn," with a mounted knight, was painted above the door. Katarina missed a proper education, and missed the pun as she stepped over the threshold. The interior was podunk-cozy, with an actual thresh floor for the thresh hold. Katarina was relieved to feel an actual wood floor below the hay, but could not appreciate the aesthetics. Barrels of grog lined the wall, and several tables were pressed together in a large mass at the center of the room. Grand General Boram Darkwill leaned over these with his arms planted around a surveyor’s map.

The Grand General’s Raedsel Guardsmen did not salute her entrance. She passed between them, not meeting the four, red eyes of each helm, and passed into the presence of her nation’s leader. Darkwill had survived more than the revolution. No historian could prove he was younger than six-hundred, and he had been head of the military for at least five-hundred of those years.

"You're late, Grieve,” Darkwill grumbled. “Someone brief Couteau."

Katarina found a place out of the action to lean while her father and the summoner were welcomed at the table. Boram pointed to an officer at his side without looking up.

"Swain, Du Couteau. Du Couteau, Swain. Swain here is a wonderful tactician, Marcus. Probably replace you someday."

Marcus Du Couteau met the tactician’s eyes while they shook hands.

"I'll be sure and kill him before then, sir," was his way of a joke.

Katarina did not have her sister's social graces, and found great difficulty distinguishing her father's sense of humor from his threats. But when all three men smiled, she realized that there may not have been a difference to recognize. Boram lifted some documents, and finally his gaze, from the table.

"Keep hosting those parties, Marcus. The Demacian ambassador says too much. Swain, you mentioned Demacian troop movements earlier?”

He nodded the question to his tactician. Swain stepped forward, and Katarina saw with some surprise that he was wearing a raven on his shoulder. The bird stared at her while Swain spoke to Darkwill.

“They had surveyors of their own in the area, sir. If they found what we did, then we should be preparing for an attack.”

“Then we need to recall Sion," Darkwill mumbled. "He’s probably drunk already. And bring the mayor here, too. I think there’s been a mistake."

Aides rushed to do his bidding. Katarina found herself peeking at documents on the table. She didn’t know the larger words, but she recognized a picture of Arcanite. Someone had found a tiny sample of the mother of all precious minerals, and possibly the origin of life on Runeterra.

“It’s sensationalism,” Boram sighed to her.

Katarina stepped away from the table and wiped the excitement from her face. She leaned against the wall again, and tried to hide her embarrassment behind indifference. Boram continued with his assessment.

“They found a manufactured trinket, not a mineral deposit. There’s nothing of value in this village.”

“And no reason for me to be paying it mind,” he added.

“That’s _our_ interpretation,” Swain warned. “But if the Demacian’s think it’s credible, they’ll-“

The door crashed open, and a corporal of the Crimson Blades learned the mistake of trying to bypass a Raedsel guardsman. Boram Darkwill’s personal soldiers had him floored, and their helmets growled with voices no man could make.

“State your business!”

The corporal tried to shout, but a harsh whisper was the most he could manage with a knee on either lung.

“ _Enemy_.”

Boram sighed, and signaled for the Raedsel to release him. The corporal rose to his feet, retrieving his helmet and securing the latch as he hurried, “Sir, Demacia, at least a battalion strong. Cavalry are charging the excavation site. They sent me ahead.”

“Confirm: A battalion,” Swain ordered.

“A battalion we’re sure of, at least, Sir.”

The corporal caught his breath. Darkwill was reeling from something else.

“Battalion. Why does that matter?” Darkwill grumbled.

“Because a battalion doesn’t march at a moment’s notice,” Swain retorted. “This is a trap.”

The realization in that statement (“And it’s worked”) chilled the room. Noxus’ top brass saw on each other’s faces a fear refined only by the presence of Boram Darkwill.

Swain shook his head free of that emotion.

“I took the liberty of summoning the Twenty First when I heard you were coming, Sir. They’ll arrive any minute. We aren’t defenseless.”

Swain was now toeing the line between useful and too useful. Boram pointed to General Du Couteau, but his eyes stayed on Swain.

“Couteau. I’m leaving. I want Swain to lead that Battalion. Make an example of him if he fails. Promote him, otherwise.”

He nodded to the Summoner, Sander Grieve, who waived his hand and made reality shift. Darkwill was gone in an instant, whisked away to the palace. The power vacuum sucked Swain into his place. He had another moment to glance Couteau’s way, to see the general gesture out the door with a look that read, “Glad I’m not you.”

But Swain did not reveal his emotional reaction. He exited the room, revealing his limp, and the cane which assisted his walking. His only comment: “Godsdamned Gold hoarders are losing their legs today.”

Just as the door shut for him, Marcus swarmed the room into motion, ordering files and maps destroyed, and dividing work with his peers. Katarina was pulled out of this action by a familiar hand. Shock pulled her back.

“Cassie? I thought- What are you doing here?”

She recovered as her sister answered.

“In a room full of strapping, young military men? Rescuing you, of course.”

Cassiopeia Du Couteau had marked the barbarian from Freljord three nights ago. She hadn’t left her room since then, and Marcus had said she was tired, ill, indisposed, and a host of other vague lies. But Katarina was too rushed to wonder how her sister had travelled from Noxus to Kalamanda.

“Let’s get some air, Kitty.”

Before Katarina could decline, Marcus took note of their conversation. And as he hustled vital documents into a fire, he passed Katarina with a whispered comment.

“Do as she says. She’s ours.”

He gestured to Cassie, but moved on, hiding that they’d spoken. Deceit was his Tao, Espionage his avenue. So Katarina had learned to live with the frustration of not understanding his ciphers. As usual, she poured the frustration over her sister and under her breath.

“I thought you were stuck in bed, Cass. You’ve had me worried. And you still do. This is about to be a warzone.”

Katarina once saw her father cover rage with discipline and pull a woman from conversation by her elbow. It was so gentlemanly-rude that no one could protest. She pulled Cassie that way now, her condemnations continuing.

“Now, look, I appreciate your concern, _sister_. But I need to return it right now. You aren’t safe here.”

A primal cynic answered from her mind that she was not safe either. It was the same feeling she’d had stumbling in the dark, just before the spy scarred her face. She had missed something and let down her guard. It wasn’t until they were out the door that she realized it. Cassie would never, ever, let Katarina lead her by the arm. But a light mage who was not Cassie, whom her father had to order her to obey, would.

The pang of fear was because Cassie’s arm had flexed. Katarina spun and drew blades to block. Dust plumed under her footwork and woodchips flicked under their heels. But the imposter was faster. In the time it took Katarina to turn, she had already been flanked. A blade pressed her chin up, where her eyes could see _Sudden Night Inn_ above the entrance of the building. But the blade moved, releasing her, and Cassie’s image held her hands up as a show of faith.

“I am not your sister. I admit.”

She smiled, a malicious and greedy grin. Then her features changed. Her face morphed and her height shifted, and Katarina recoiled at the sight of her own mother.

“I am also not your mother,” the mage chided.

Then her image fluxed to someone far more familiar and sinister. Katarina had seen that face in every rag of a publication that still tried to make news out of a dead secret society.

“You aren’t Emilia LeBlanc, either,” Katarina growled.

The impostor laughed and resumed Cassiopeia’s form.

“But I am your friend,” she cooed, “Or your father’s friend, at least. ‘Play along’?”

Katarina lowered her weapons.

“Thank you,” the impostor finally breathed. And she extended an envelope.

“This is for the barman of the Hasty Hammer Inn. He’s at the end of this street. Wait there.”

Katarina did not take it. She stared, a skeptical expression sullying the conversation.

“I’ve… I’ve just met you,” she murmured.

The light mage laughed in agreement.

“It’s a hard life for we few who still rely on the trusting and the trustworthy. But let’s be honest, Katarina. Your father vouched for me. Would I lie?”

Katarina sheathed a blade, keeping the other ready, and retrieved the envelope. The impostor’s smile held no truths. But Katarina had her father’s word. She looked into this woman’s eyes again, into a false image of her sister’s.

“This… That’s it? Just carry this letter?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” the light mage retorted, “I’m about to change your life.”

Katarina’s skepticism returned.

“My father raised me to kill. I’m a lieutenant in the military. You think you’re promoting me into serious business by having me walk a letter down a street? Is that it?”

She watched with trepidation as the stranger’s lip tucked in thought and deceit.

“Wellllllll…” she thought aloud. “I wouldn’t say _walk_.”

And then the Sudden Night Inn exploded.


	5. Chapter 5

Demacian merchants knew the difference between golden and gilded. The nation's coins were pure. The onion domes of state buildings were not. But they reflected the sun, and it was only the poorer classes they needed to impress. Military recruitment had fallen with the last generation; Demacians had no quarrel with a post-revolution Noxus. But King Lightshield saw what had emerged from the ashes to his east, and a plan was devised to meet their ancient enemy once again. Preparations had to be made for the next war. Taxes rose, as did veterans’ benefits. A cot and clothing was all some people needed, and the military had these in surplus.

 

Garen Crownguard was born a class above need, into a great, white house within the Demacian Acropolis. As a child, his adventures had yet to take him so far as the slums of his own city. But he perched beside his young friends on an aesthetic ledge of the Crownguard estate's perimeter wall. Gusts pulled them from the stone and challenged their adventurous spirits, but curiosity anchored them to the gargoyles.

 

It was after a long moment of staring that Garen spoke his first words of the day.

“What do they do out here?”

Garen had spent his ten years of life wondering about things and investigating. His friends behaved likewise. And their leader, Jarvan Lightshield the Fourth, the heir to the Demacian throne, gave the order.

“Let's go ask.”

 

Garen and his friends followed the pre-teen prince's billowing cape to the wall-walk. Garen had a fascination with counting the arrow slits, and the crenelated stones between them. The locations had not been chosen for symmetry, and only the wall’s exteriors were decorated: gargoyles, gold flags with white trim. Jarvan’s voice broke the moment.

 

“You there. Pikeman! I am Prince Jarvan Lightshield the Fourth. Who are you?”

Jarvan paid no attention to the people behind him, so he missed as Garen whispered to another friend, “I thought we were actually going to look down there.”

Thom Garvin, the friend, shrugged back. The pikeman turned from his post, amused and a bit insulted. He leaned on his weapon, staring down at the prince with disgust or spite, and chewed the last of his coffee ration.

“You're the prince,” he mumbled.

“Yes. And I have some questions for you, soldier,” Jarvan demanded.

Garen had an opinion on Jarvan’s behavior, but checked its popularity on his friends faces. They were loyal to an authority they had no concept of.

“As you will, my liege,” the soldier mumbled.

Jarvan ignored the sarcastic tone.

“What are all of my subjects doing in the dirty parts of town?”

He pointed over the wall. Sour mixed with sweet on the soldier’s face.

“They live there.”

“It’s filthy, and it stank of pig when I was there last week. Someone should clean it up,” Jarvan demanded. Then, to his retinue, “Let’s play a game.”

Garen saw over his shoulder that the Pikeman shared his opinion of Jarvan. But he did not see solidarity.

 

They found a game, or toys to construct one. Sticks became swords, and friends became enemies. Their field was the backyard of the Crownguard estate, Garen’s home. A half-constructed tree-house stood on fresh-tilled dirt. Grass had yet to be planted in this section. His mother had occupied the front of the mansion with a party, so this tree fort in the rear was uncontested.

  
All they needed was something to fight over. They spent a long time mulling about this. A prisoner served best- someone that could fog a mirror but not protest. Another friend spoke up.

“There are other kids inside, right? I thought I saw a girl in there.”

Velan had shutter-eyes, snapping for a photographic memory. The group was reluctant to add a girl, or to take Velan’s advice in general, but desperation won out.

“Fine,” Jarvan huffed. “Garen, go find the girl and take her prisoner.”

 

Garen’s insertion through the servant’s hallways went unnoticed. But emerging into the house proper, he was presented with a forest of expensive waistlines. This was the ballroom, massive windows and a native ironwood floor, polished until the reflection was stronger than the planks. An arcanite chandelier of the extinct Demacian Eagle shimmered with magic over a massive hearth in the room’s center. Garen had grown up around this wealth. To him, the real decorations were on the people. He waded into the adults seeking someone his age. The headcount above him was Demacia’s top everything. Princepes and Pontiffs had gathered in hopes that the King’s gold would rub off on them. There was no girl to be seen, though.

 

Two maids were whispering at the edge of the room.

“They are entering a young age,” one cooed. “They go adventuring.”

 _Young._ Garen squeezed between noble robes to see that the other maid was worried. She wrung her hands around a handkerchief and whispered back.

“It worries me. They’ve never been gone this long. And Quinn has her debut in just five years. I have a letter of recommendation from her Ladyship, but what if Quinn hurts her face like Caleb’s? I just-“

Trembling cheeks. Red eyes. Control.

“I want to be a good mother, but I don’t know what to do. I can’t afford a nanny, and the trip home is too long.”

The handkerchief relieved her eyes.

“You said her brother is with her, right? Caleb will keep her safe.”

“But Noxus patrols through that pass! It isn’t a game if they could be mistaken for spies!”

 

Garen lost interest when he realized the maids meant a girl that was elsewhere. But as he turned to walk away, he bumped someone. This waistline wore the colors of a different nation. And as he looked up this woman’s body, he saw no gold or white cloth. Purple met red and black wrappings under a near-black cloak. On her head rested a crown like he’d never seen. Three golden prongs swept back from a ruby on her brow. His eyes focused on hers, though, and the hazel gems burned into him.

“Garen Crownguard,” she murmured. “Your mother has big plans for you.”`

Garen had not been taught to react to this kind of situation.

“Thank you,” he mumbled.

The strange woman smiled. As her eyes released him, he finally saw the emblem of Noxus on her lapel. The symbol was nestled within onyx petals, and Garen found himself similarly situated as her nails stroked his cheek. Sharp and black, they turned his chin up to examine him.

“You’ll be very handsome someday. Just don’t scratch your face. No one buys a torn painting.”

Her voice snapped as if slapping against his comfort. Garen remembered his objective, though. His friends were waiting.

“I’m looking for a prisoner,” he exclaimed.

The woman from Noxus smiled.

“A girl, no doubt.”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

She scanned the room, a finger to her lips, and pointed Garen’s shoulders towards a man he recognized as a sailor. Then she kneeled down next to him and pointed through the legs in the way.

“There’s a girl for you right there,” she hummed.

Garen had a mission, and thank-you’s weren’t an objective. He set off toward the sailor’s feet, overhearing his rank, and wondered what an Admiral does. The thought was forgotten as he saw two children. One, a boy, stood under the admiral’s grip.

 

The other, the girl, stood opposite, under the grip of Colonel Laurent. Garen had already met them.

“Hey,” was his entry to the conversation. “Your name is Fiora, right?”

She nodded russet hair, quiet.

“Jarvan and us are all playing War and we need a prisoner. Do you want to play?”

He had hardly finished before the other boy offered. But the admiral pulled him back with a sharp reprimand.

“Lionel! Behave! War is unseemly!”

“They’re kids, Brickhouse,” the colonel chuckled to his peer, “And we’ve been at peace for decades. War is a game now, remember?”

Fiora Laurent only shook her head as an answer, and bit her lip to hold back some secret thought. Garen left in despair. He had failed his friends. Returning to them empty handed would burn his cheeks with shame. Desperate, he pondered his options. The royal party faded as his feet followed his thoughts to the nursery.

 

Garen found an intruder in there that wasn’t likely to object. She wasn’t old enough to voice a complaint, anyways. He rolled his sister’s cradle onto the lawn. It would probably be an adventure to her, and Jarvan always got mean when things didn’t go exactly his way. Jarvan and the rest of them had refurbished the tree fort in the meantime. They met his approach with suspicion.

“Who goes there!” was called from the fortification.

“It’s me,” Garen called.

“What’s the passphrase?”

The voice belonged to Reihms. He had joined the group just a week ago, and was proving himself by doing exactly as told. Garen Crownguard and Jarvan Lightshield had practically grown up together. In that time, Garen had learned that Jarvan was guided entirely by his ego.

 

Garen called back, “Is the passphrase ‘Lightshield?’”

“Uh… yeah,” Reihms mumbled. Another face, Velan and his twitchy eyes, appeared beside him in the treefort.

“Hey! Garen found a prisoner!”

It didn’t take long to invent a simple lever and bring the cradle aboard. Jarvan, of course, would be defending. Garen was volunteered to captain the other team.

 

Jarvan took all the biggest kids. He wanted bruisers. Garen saw how this was going. Jarvan wanted to fight right at the tops of the fort’s ladder. Garen had a different idea. Thom and Velan had helped Garen steal bricks from the wall patrol before. They had the skills he needed.

 

And Garen, Thom, and Velan knew better than to surrender in these impossible odds. They scrambled out of earshot just as Jarvan called “Attack! We’re ready when you are!”

“This sucks,” Velan sighed.

“Yeah, I wanna be in the fort,” Thom grumbled.

“We will be,” Garen snorted.

Their feet found grass, and their forms found concealment in the maze his mother was constructing. A single-layer maze was insufficient in the modern world. Bushes marked the perimeter of this one, but branches from trees were being grown into stairs and floors. For now, they were the roof of another fort. Garen huddled his men beneath the canopy.

“Alright. We can’t fight them. There’s no way we can win on that ladder. They’ll just push us off. So we have to get into the fort without using the ladder.”

The rest, he hadn’t thought of.

“We could jump off the wall and try to land on it,” Velan tried.

Thom nodded. “Yeah. You first, idiot. That’s a ten meter drop.”

“We could rappel, moron,” Velan shot back.

“With a big rope we don’t have?”

“Maybe we should draw them out of the fort,” Garen thought.

“They have the objective inside it. They aren’t that dumb,” Thom scoffed.

“This sucks,” he added.

“What sucks?”

A new voice, a girl, drew their heads to the maze’s entrance.

“Hey, we already got a prisoner, Fiora,” Garen scolded.

“I know,” she asserted. “All the adults are looking for her. I want to help you guys get her back.”

“But you’re a girl,” Velan snorted.

“So? I can still help you guys. I’m smart.”

She smiled.

They sneered.

“We don’t need a girl on our team,” Garen apologized.

Fiora crushed her smile under a stomp and left with her support. But seeing the stomp, Garen’s muse tickled a thought.

“I’ve got an idea,” he blurted. “Follow me.”

 

Jarvan’s view must have been confusing. He could see them entering the maze, then leaving in a rush, hurrying to the turret of the garden’s wall, and up into the fortifications. Inside, they had finally left his view. Now it was the security detail they had to evade.

 

Garen saw a pikeman coming and signaled a halt to his friends. The trio put on their cool faces, began inspecting the stone wall’s interior or tying their shoes as the Pikeman passed them. He nodded a hello. They looked the other way. As he rounded a corner, Garen motioned them forward again.

“Ok. He’s gone.”

“This is dumb,” Velan mumbled.

“Hey, I bet they have artillery up here,” Thom thought aloud.

“It can’t help us. It’s pointed the wrong way, idiot,” Velan spat.

Their feud continued down the wall-walk, keeping low behind the parapet to avoid Jarvan’s detection. Garen peeked over it, and nearly spit when he hissed.

“ _Hey!”_

The other boys peeked over and added their distaste.

“It’s that girl again,” Velan whispered.

She was standing in the yard, at the base of the tree fort, reckoning with Jarvan and his crew. Jarvan was making a sign with some paint, and hurriedly placed it on the fort’s façade for Fiora.

_No gurls aloud._

“That’ll tell her off,” Thom mumbled.

 

Store rooms for the cannons above were hollowed into the wall at intervals. They ducked low again, and followed Garen off of the wall-walk, into the next of these. The trio ran past the canon powder and set to work rummaging through the crates available to their short reach.

“There should be some rope in here to drag the canons around,” Garen whispered.

“Yeah, it’s in a blue box,” Velan remembered. He closed his eyes and retrieved the image: “and the serial number on the side is-“

“Guys.”

Velan startled at the interruption. He and Garen turned to see their friend Thom, his hands gripping his own temples. An idea too great for words was threatening to explode in his head.

“Guy. Guys, like- ok so… Imagine… What if… What if we could just get rid of the fort?”

Velan and Garen sought each other for an explanation, then Thom.

“How?”

“Yeah, what? How?”

“Guys… we’re in a room… Full of gunpowder.”

 

Jarvan had another strange view. While he waited for Garen’s attackers to reappear, the adults had deployed from their noble party into a search party. He didn’t understand what they were looking for. The thought left his mind when Garen, Velan, and Thom rolled a barrel out of the perimeter wall, then nudged it downhill to the fort.

 

Jarvan cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted to be heard.

“Hey! What is that? No fair, tell me what that is!”

His answer came from the wall-walk, from a disgruntled pikeman who suddenly took note.

“Hey! Hey, that’s gunpowder! Don’t play with that!”

The barrel rolled to a stop at the tree’s base. Only then did Jarvan notice the trail of powder leaking from its side.

 

Garen smacked his face.

“We don’t have fire,” he mumbled to his team.

Thom Garvin smiled; his hand extended with his father’s lighter ready. He opened the silver cap with a shaking thumb. Velan took a step back. He had been present at the last of Thom’s pyronic episodes. The lighter dropped.

 

The tree did not fall, but all of the children were knocked to their backs, and the parents were made aware. Lilia had the eyes of a hawk when she sensed danger, and focused them now on the cradle hanging out of the remains of the fort. Garen sat up to see his mother dancing under the edge of the fort, now tilted. Part of the tree had vanished, annihilated. The rest was leaning to fill the absence.

“Luxanna! My baby!”

It was crying. Jarvan’s head appeared where the fort’s wall had been.

“Luxanna sounds like a girl’s name,” he shouted back.

“She’s my daughter you- you-“ Lilia had guests to make an appearance for, the King included- “you hooligan!”

But her attention returned to the cradle. Two of its wheels dangled over the fort’s edge, and the chassis rocked precariously. Jarvan grabbed his end and tried to pull it back.

“That’s _my_ prisoner!” he yelled.

But his arrogance gave way to panic when Garen answered from behind him. Thom was at his side, and Velan had just finished climbing the rope. They were in.

“No,” Garen smiled. “She’s ours.”

 

The fighting was intense. Thom and Velan squared off against the bruisers. They could not win, but they could buy time. Garen shoved Jarvan over the cradle headfirst, and Jarvan drew a wooden sword. Garen took many blows, but not too many. His fists pummeled the prince to the tune of his mother’s indignant screaming. In this brutal melee, the ladder was unguarded. Fiora made quick work scaling it, then procuring Luxanna from the crib, and then interrupting the fight with a polite cough.

 

The boys heard a female; their heads twitched around to find her, and seeing that they all looked very stupid, they straightened their noble clothes and tried to correct that. Only Jarvan cared to persist, and mumbled, “No girls aloud.”

She delivered a swift kick to his chest. The inertia carried him over and down.

“No boys aloud,” she corrected.

She pushed Garen more gently, but he was not allowed to resist a girl, and also had to fall off.

 

The shock of landing broke his bloodlust.

 

The children’s senses returned, and they noticed now the siren from the estate’s perimiter. They saw as the adults’ party was rushing from the house. The children’s gazes followed these to the gate, to a royal messenger on horseback. He passed the gates and dismounted quickly, a child in his arms.

 

 

At this distance, Garen could only see the child was a girl in an expensive red dress. He took the color to mean Noxian, belonging to the adult woman he had bumped into. But as she drew closer, this girl’s mother, a maid, broke from the crowd screaming “Quinn! Quinn, where is your brother?”

 

The girl had seemed fine before. But as her mother approached, she fell to her knees and wailed over the siren. Blood dripped from her golden dress. And in a vague, childish, way, Garen realized that War is a game… Until someone gets hurt.


	6. Chapter 6

When Demacians’ need a word for “Atheist,” they borrow it from the Zaunite tongue. In Demacia, good men became saints, and then minor gods. These lessers were the courtesans of heaven, emulated in ceremonies glorifying pivotal moments of history. Those rituals were, in turn, the Tao of Eidolons.

 

So when the alarm was rung, it found Garen mid-ritual, taking on the mantle of The Knight’s final moments. He was nude, shield and sword laid before himself, muscles oiled by the Seraph pepper. A kite hung on the wall. Incense tingled on his skin. He had hand-woven a nest for the Demacian Eagle, now extinct. The call to arms was coincidental to the moment, but fitting. The Knight, The Kite Soldier, The Might of Demacia, had lived and died in battle. Now his follower raised a sword and shield in his honor.

 

Garen answered that call within the hour, heavy cloth donned, gnawing his coffee ration as he took a seat beside Reihms. The rest of their unit filtered into stadium seating while the Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard took his stand beside a chalk board. Scryed and scribbled images had been tacked along the side, and a summoner had runed a map of the operational area into the center. Some village, Kalamanda, was about to have a bad day. It was here that the chalk and The Captain became relevant.

 

“Listen up! We’re deploying as two teams. I will be leading Alpha team. Alpha Team has a Noxian soldier, Sion, as our sole objective. I want his head.”

The Captain’s eyes flew over the gazes and into Garen.

“Crownguard will be leading Bravo Team. Your objective is Boram Darkwill. A team of commandos is on the ground already and has him in this pub.”

Chalk shrieked over the map. Men squinted.

“He’s surrounded by Noxus’ top brass. We’ve seen at least a quarter of the Raedsel Guard in the area, and the rest could reinforce by teleport within the hour.”

He nodded to Garen’s raised hand.

“Sir, how do we find them?”

Garen followed as the Captain’s point turned. A short, young female sprinted into the room, panting, as the Captain introduced her. Garen saw the same telltale signs of his sister’s unit: full-body leather suit, breasts wrapped tight to her chest, platinum-blonde hair cut short to fit a helm. He knew the face. He knew she knew the area. He’d be shocked if she could ever forget. This girl was a survivor of the DSB’s trial-and-error methods. Or as the Captain put it:

 

“This is Agent Quinn, from the Security Bureau. She was providing support for the commando mission, and knows the area. She’ll be attaching to your unit and navigating.”

The details disposed of, The Captain waved his arms to indicate the big picture.

“Demacia hasn’t had a chance like this in five-hundred years. We have a battalion stationed half-a-charge from a city with no walls, and all of our high-priority targets inside. It is most definitely a trap, and we would be fools not to fall for it. Bravo team will rendezvous and coordinate with the Commandos while Alpha gets in position. Garen Crownguard will await our ready signal, and then give the Go Code. After that, it’s Hell and Mettle.”

 

The only question left held an obvious assumption. Kalamanda was half-way across the continent from the Demacian Capitol. Garen’s hand received another nod.

“Where do we gate in, sir?”

 

It was seconds later that men were scrambling to their equipment. Fatigues would not block swords. Golden armor unhung from lockers, and Agent Quinn waited, catching her breath and brushing Kalamandan dirt from her equipment. Reihms smirked into Garen’s ear.

“She looks antsy.”

“Noxus killed her brother near Kalamanda,” he grumbled.

Garen had seen her return from a skirmish as a child. She had been the poor girl stained in blood.

“But the DSB doesn’t hire chumps,” he was about to say. Instead, his words choked as his eyes focused inside Reihms’ locker. The pin-up there was no Demacian beauty. The emblem of Noxus stood erect in a foreigner’s cleavage. Garen took a moment to process before mumbling, “Who’s that?”

Reihms didn’t seem concerned.

“Cassiopeia Du Couteau. She did a photo-shoot for _Ladies of Hextech_ , last week.”

Reihms smirked while the name tumbled through Garen’s head.

“Du Couteau? As in General Marcus Du Couteau of Noxus’ High Command? We’re about to kill him. Reihms, she’s Noxian.”

“She’ll be Demacian when the war’s over,” Reihms grinned.

And he kissed his fingers, and pressed them to the photo as his armor fell into place.

 

A different insertion took Garen’s mind off that travesty. When Garen had been briefed about teleportation, he was very excited to experience it. Then a new, more efficient, and less comfortable method of transportation was discovered. Experts called it transpositioning and remarked on efficiency of manna. But as Reihms put it, “Arriving intact is more important than arriving.”

 

Reihms stood beside Garen now, among two squadrons, at the foot of a dais. Engravings glowed upon it as summoners made final preparations for their crimes against nature. Garen breathed to calm his nerves. He was waiting for the showy sparks he associated with a summoner’s work, that they would chant and raise their arms. But their work had been in the day of preparation. Their ceremony was subtle. The result…

 

Reality ripped. The air before them collided with a place thousands of kilometers away, and nature screamed through the hole as the temperatures equalized. Arcane spurts and firecrackers lit up around the portal’s edge as the Vanguards charged through. Wind tore and roared at their faces as the heated interior of the room dispersed under a field of stars. Demacia’s ocean breeze became the stagnant air of an inland quarry.

 

Everyone found their feet about a meter in the air. And what were orderly columns of men became five square klicks of dispersion. Agent Quinn landed beside Garen with her pack split perfectly in half, centimeters from her spine.

“Good,” she quipped. “I was getting tired of carrying that.”

 

None of this had been a true surprise after the briefing. The surprise was sunshine. It should have set already, especially this far east, but something was burning the sky. The men balked at a mountain in the distant South, Targon. Its snowy cap peeked over the horizon, and was still reflecting the rays of the star. The Captain mustered them, and the two teams separated quickly.

 

Quinn lead Garen leading Bravo. Men trailed behind them in the light and shadows of the quarry. The night sky above was soiled by a still-glowing horizon, and the beam of mount Targon's snowy cap still gazed upon the surface of every boulder. But Garen’s men moved in shadows with heads low and hands ready at their swords. Agent Quinn gestured for slow movement from point, and peered through the bushes ahead of her, a crossbow held ready. Garen caught up to see the town’s road, clear in both directions. Quinn leaned to Garen.

“The town’s built in a circle around the forest. But the locals stay out of it. Superstition. We can cut through.”

 

So they did. The group rose up and dashed the road, relying on the heavy contrast of night against Targon’s Eye for concealment. The forest swallowed their silhouettes soon after, and what they moved through now was foliage and utter silence.

 

Garen saw in Quinn’s eyes what he feared. This was not the forest’s mood on her first trip. But her head perked up, and Garen heard as she did. Something sounded through the trees, like the growl of a creature. Their wedge reformed into a column, and the vanguard proceeded slower, weapons ready.

 

The sound magnified as they approached, and parting high grass, they saw what rumbled. A team of Noxians and Zaunites stood over a hole, their work clothes soiled and smeared. Hextech lamps hung by their power cables from the branches, trailing back to a rumbling engine that belched steam and magic.

 

The workers were staring into the hole at a machine slowly grinding its way down. It shuddered, sparked, and stopped.

“Hit another root,” someone called.

“Again?”

Men slid into the hole to inspect.

A worker threw down his helmet in anger.

“Damnit! Damnit, damnit, damnit! Boram Darkwill’s gonna have our heads over a frakking trinket! You just couldn’t keep your damn mouth shut, Zanek!”

“Look who’s talking. You keep blabbing national secrets and they might actually kill us.”

But the mumblings of that worker earned more than he’d bargained for. The Foreman rounded and grabbed him by the chinstrap and unhinged the organ that stored his rage.

“You think we’re the only people who know? Darkwill sneezed in our general direction, and you think the first people they told were some coggers from Zaun? You can bet your _paycheck_ there are peasants in Demacia who found out before us! And we wouldn’t be in this mess if you had just kept that Arcanite bracelet for yourself! There’s not a damn mineral in Kalamanda worth digging for with toy shovels, but now we’ve got to strike paydirt or face fraud charges! There are journalists lining up articles back home about how we’re trying to cash in on real estate by lying about our survey results!”

He tossed the worker aside and slid down the hole to inspect the problem himself.

 

Garen murmured to Quinn.

“We can go around.”

He saw her nod, amused, and Bravo Team trotted around a problem that wasn’t theirs. The Foreman’s cries bade them farewell.

“Uproot this damn tree! There’s probably more Arcanite in the wood than the dirt, anyways.”

 

Garen had different roots to strike. He carried on, almost without event. Quinn signaled a halt and aimed her crossbow into the darkness. But the eyes that peered from the shadows reflected in the night. A fox with nine tails stepped forward to greet them and sniff their armor. That relief was brief. Tavern lights sparkled ahead, and the brush ended abruptly.

 

Garen felt a blade at his throat, and a harsh whisper from an old friend. Two missed breaths later, he finally peeked down.

“Took you long enough,” Velan whispered.

Enchanted armor shifted colors, from an amorphous black to olive drab, revealing his friend’s silhouette in the foliage below him. Garen pushed the Commando’s blade aside.

“Nice to see you, too, Velan. Where’s the rest of your unit?”

Garen followed Velan’s nods.

“Thom’s finishing The Boom. That knoll over there’s got a good view.”

Velan pointed while another silhouette joined them.

 

Thom Garvin’s impatient entry was, “Boom’s ready. Oh. Garen? Hi.”

He tossed a lighter into Garen’s hand, the very same that had destroyed his tree fort years ago.

 

“Flip that on and I’ll level everything for fifty paces,” Thom smiled.

Garen, like Velan, had learned to rely on Thom Garvin’s bombs more than on Thom Garvin. Fifty paces meant five-hundred.

 

The ward on Garen’s belt rumbled, Alpha Team’s ready signal. That meant everyone but Garen was in position. He crawled up the knoll and slid into the bushes for a view, Bravo Team dispersing around him as the unit readied for action.

 

His first sight was a cobble road. Then, long, slender legs.

 

“Well, damn.”

Reihms mumbled Garen’s thoughts aloud. The legs- The woman in front of the pub, was Cassiopeia, the very same from Reihm’s pinup poster. And here she was in Kalamanda, wearing the same dress she had for Zaun’s photographers. Across from her was another woman, her back turned and bearing armor and sheathed swords.

“They’re- what- ten paces? They’ll die,” Reihms mumbled.

“Yup,” Thom mumbled back, “Pellets’ll be waist height at that distance.”

The men thought about this sad loss for a moment. Then Reihms nudged Thom and offered, “Hey. I get the top half. You get the bottom.”

They chuckled. Garen sighed.

 

But he wasn’t listening. Garen retreated to a memory, and felt again the disgust his mother had given to him. The day had promised his first visit with Luxanna since her conscription. Then the call to arms had pulled him from worship. He knew he wouldn’t have much time to say goodbye, let alone hello, but Mother took what she wanted. When Lilia Crownguard finally entered the foyer of her palatial home, diamonds and lace sparkling about her, Garen had only minutes.

“I can’t find Luxanna,” he’d scowled.

She had ignored him.

“Prince Jarvan tells me that your latest assignment is dangerous.”

Her eyes had shot him, demanding a response.

“Noxus. Behind enemy lines. The extraction is complicated. I just came to say goodbye,” he’d shrugged, adding, “Just in case.”

Lilia's smiles kept secrets, but not then.

“Thank you, Dear. I will pass your worries on to Luxanna when she returns.”

Garen had gaped, steeled his jaw to stop a growl or a shout. All he managed was “What?”

“Noxus,” Lilia smiled. “Behind enemy lines. The extraction is complicated- oh Garen, do try to keep up with your sister's accomplishments.”

And just as he was about to protest, she’d added, “She _is_ almost ten years younger than you.”

Garen clenched his jaw at the memory, and swallowed cruel words. Lilia had sighed, her features softening.

“Now tell me you love me and go be a good boy for your country.”

Garen had nodded, humbled.

“I love you, mom.”

She’d nodded, turned, and left for whatever a socialite's work entails, adding over her shoulder, “Kill as many Noxians as you can, darling. I hear war will be illegal soon, and you do not want anyone thinking you were a coward.”

 

Anyone meaning her. Garen squeezed the ward on his thigh, returning the ready signal. In that instant, Kalamanda blazed with ward activity. The device in his ear sparked to life mid-argument. The Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard and the Battalion commander were rallying men and relaying orders over each other.

“Everyone’s in position then,” Garen whispered. “On my mark. How copy?”

“Good copy,” came in unison.

The lighter Thom Garvin had handed him looked familiar. He held it up, and saw the engraving as its flame provided light. Thom Garvin’s father had passed it on after death. It still bore scorches from Thom’s first taste of gunpowder.

“Mark.”


	7. Chapter 7

A travelling monk from Ionia once stopped at the Du Couteau residence. He had brought a big disk and a big mallet, solely for the purpose of making noise. The memory was ringing in Katarina’s ears.

She groaned, felt the circadian rhythm reforming in her head, and saw the fires rising from where she surmised had been a very big boom. Propaganda surfaced in her mind: “Demacia is the threat!” And some alert part of her remembered what she had just been handed. Her fingers closed over the letter.

She scrambled to her feet, head rising into the smell of burning hay. Kalamanda _village_. She staggered upright, parrying a crossbow bolt on instinct. The animal she’d trained to protect her was faster than her thinking mind; She didn’t believe what had happened until she deflected a second bolt. Then she ran. A glance over her shoulder saw flashes of gold armor charging through the remains of the Sudden Night Inn. Demacia was the threat.

And for the first time, Katarina was at war.

She heard nothing but the drumming of her heart, felt nothing but heat. The wind in her pace fanned the flames on her shoulder, but she punched them out mid stride, envelope clutched tight. She tripped over a body not fifty meters later. Sion, or what was left of the brute, had been hacked to pieces in the middle of the street. She had never met him before. She only knew the rumors of the biggest, baddest brute in her nation’s military. The posters had not exaggerated. What she’d thought a torso was just his arm. The torso was missing.

Some podunk farmer was heralding nearby.

“WAR! To arms!”

 _And to wits_ , she thought. The scraping clank of armor was on her again. Three swordsman spearheaded into the road with two riflemen inside their formation’s wedge. Noxus’ response. The black and red uniforms stopped only to help Katarina up, then turned to face the gold.

She had a uniform of her own. But the instinct to join the melee had to be tempered. That duty wasn’t hers. The red accents faded from her uniform, and the black primary shrouded her in clandestine duties. Her father, her general, Spymaster of Noxus, had given her this letter to carry. This was intelligence. _I wouldn’t say walk_ , was the choice of words. Katarina was no stranger to endurance. The months spent practicing motion focused on now, on hauling a tight ass.

It was a straight shot, down the street and through the heavy door of the Hasty Hammer Inn. It shut under its own weight, and another thresh floor poked at whatever part of her despised farm country. She slipped on the hay, but had recovered and slammed her parcel down on the bar before her next chance to think.

“Barman. Mail.”

Her entry and words echoed in the silence. Every chair had a native Kalamandan, but they were quietly drinking, swords tingling in sheathes. Their harsh glares out the front window now focused on Katarina.

They gawked at a woman in uniform. It was new, even to Noxus. At her debut, she had approached a Duke’s son and asked him for a dance. Marcus had escorted her out, whispering, “society isn’t ready for that.”

Society would have to get used to it, she’d thought.

But now she was thinking about her father, and wondering what brilliant ruse he’d planned to escape the explosion. There was no doubt in her mind that he had. If anything, she was suspicious that he was somehow responsible. In the next moment, her thoughts returned to the immediate situation.

Worried patrons of the pub had all turned their eyes to her, begging for answers and explanations about the outside.

“Mind your business,” was her answer.

The barman tapped her shoulder with an envelope. In his off-hand was the envelope she had just handed him. What he was handing her now had been inside the first.

“ _To the bearer_ ,” was its address.

Katarina was not fond of social or spy games. Cassie had always won them. But she was forced to play now. She split the seal with a blade, and turned into the words. In most reading, she sought out words she didn’t know and gave up on the spot. Today was the exception, for she knew the author’s name.

  
  


_Katarina,_

_It has been too long for you to call me mother. But if I could leave you one thing in this parchment, it would be my love. There are things you must know, but little that I can say. You are in danger, always. Trust your father and our Matron. They will protect you, Katarina._

_My dearest love,_

_Evaine._

  
  


The paper ignited on its own as she read the last words, annihilating as she dropped it. She turned to the barman for answers, who shrugged.

The only other attention Katarina had was from the bar. A girl’s small frame hid under a cloak, blue eyes, blonde locks, battered face- but her gaze averted when Katarina looked. Beside her, a bodyguard sat reversed. He met Katarina’s eyes, and it seemed the stir in her daggers roused his like a Zaunite radio.

The contact was sundered by a loud patron who took his stand on a table and shouted in his native Kalamandan tongue. He gestured to a nearby friend, some ancient mage retired from war and relegated to the kind of magic expatriate farmers would need. The bright zap between his fingers was easily recognized to any layman. The man on the table spoke now in a language every ear could understand, without accent.

“Honestly,” his somber tone worried, “we built our homes in no man’s land. Demacia lies in wait to our west, and Noxus to our east. It was not ours to harvest the great bounty that we keep seeking here. It is a war torn, barren, land. We thought we had chosen a crossroads for merchants, but the only traders here exchange death for gold. Now the fighting has come. We hear their swords clashing outside. Kalamanda is not the grand success that we sought out, but it is our home. And though we may be blind to it, there is something so valuable to these nations that they war for it. If ever there was a time to throw our back into this grand experiment, it is now. Those with strong legs should run. Those with strong hearts should fight. You may count me among the latter.”

His tone was softer than his words, but the merchants of death he spoke of were his audience. Fighting was their profession. They stood and nodded, just as softly and calmly as the speaker had, and efficiently marched outside as they drew their blades.

Katarina had heard of many encouraging speeches that had to be louder and more enthusiastic. She decided that Kalamandan’s were simply unusual. Without transition, the next thought forced its way into her mind.

This letter was proof: Evaine knew she wouldn’t be around to see Katarina grow up. All other thoughts faded, clearing her mind like the soldiers filing out of the pub. Sorrow and nostalgia alternated with the rhythm of a rag washing a cup. Katarina’s only solace was Marcus; and _his_ , her.

This left one more puzzle to solve in the spy game: why deliver the letter to this bar?

  
  


Thunder shook the pub’s interior. It was the sound of air displacing. Summoner Sander Grieve staggered _ex nihilo_ and fell to the thresh floor with Marcus du Couteau at his side. They were laughing. Marcus rubbed blood from his cheek onto his uniform. Grieve’s robes absorbed what was on him.

“So I’ll admit, that was cutting it close,” Grieve rasped.

He coughed through Marcus’ laughter and reassuring pats on the back.

“Just in time, though, Grieve. Oh Gods, did you see their faces? Major Ohlant must have shit himself when he realized we were leaving him.”

“Good riddance,” Grieve groaned.

Katarina cleared her throat. Marcus straightened himself, then his uniform, realizing he had someone to command.

“Kitty. We’re in the pub, right? Glad you made it,” was his acknowledgement. He pulled her to the bar and poured three drinks while he talked. The bartender let Marcus move past him; he was occupied, glaring at two patrons who had not left. The cloaked girl and her armed escort had changed seats to a far table.

“So you met The Matron,” Marcus was humming.

Katarina’s father demanded her attention with his tone.

“She likes to play games, Kat. Play along and you’ll be fine.”

He shoved a drink down the bar to Grieve, who took a stool. Marcus claimed his drink in a hard-working throat. Summoner Grieve was not so eager to drown. He stared at his friend with worry and murmured, “He escaped, Marcus. We have to tell her, eventually.”

Katarina leaned to the summoner.

“Tell… _Me_?”

No answer from Grieve. Marcus’ glass came down, and Katarina felt fear again. Because her father was afraid.

“We don’t have to tell her,” he finally gasped. Then to his daughter, “The Dauntless Vanguard is the unit that attacked us. They retreated into the forest. They’ll try to rejoin the cavalry battalion. You need to kill them before they do. All of them.”

“Don’t forget Sion’s body,” Grieve added.

“Details,” Marcus dismissed. His head didn’t even turn. But his face had to settle as he leveled with his daughter.

“It was a small strike team with the element of surprise. We’ve killed five. There can’t be many more. Get into that forest and pick off the stragglers. _All_ of them, Kat.”

Katarina put her hands on the counter and leaned into him.

“You want me to take on the Vanguard on a moment’s notice? What if I’m not ready?”

Marcus had grown accustomed to her quick and eager responses, not her outrage. But he held his anger with a forced breath, and eyed her over: A bulge under either thigh in her pants, where throwing knives pouched- the greatsword on her left hip- daggers crossed over her chest, hilts bulging behind the chest of her dress uniform. He held back a tear. She was always ready.

“I didn’t raise a slacker,” was his phrasing.

“Now come on,” he added. “This war won’t wait for us.”

That was Katarina’s exit from the pub, and the parting murmur from Summoner Grieve.

“You can’t play lawyer with this, Marcus. Details matter. The oracle said-”

“She’ll kill him,” Marcus hoped. “She’s a big girl. She can solve it herself.”

It did not take long for Katarina to retrace her steps to Sion, which was bad. She needed time to think. The fighting had been pushed towards Demacia’s side, and Katarina was free to follow footsteps in the dust around Sion’s limbs. Her eyes tracked a runner’s paces into the forest, and stopped at a mass of signs knocked over by the retreat. She picked out warnings and exclamations as she passed, but reading wasn’t her strong suit.

All she read:

“… voices lie!”

“… strange whispers!”

And on each was a skull. She’d never seen a jungle before today, but she’d heard awful things about them. She passed those warnings into dense and denser brush until the sound of war faded away. The quiet of trees and vines and hidden creatures was a more ominous warning than any words. She had been born blunt to magic, and did not feel arcane forces as other people do, but here she felt that she could forget her business if she idled too long. And that feeling was not mundane.

She pushed onward, breathing low, listening for the sounds that heavy armor had to make. Her uniform was too cumbersome. She took a moment for security, and stripped down to the leather armor she always wore beneath. Reflective eyes observed her from the darkness, watching her change skin. The creature was as alien to her. When it stepped forward, stretching its face to sniff her, she eyed all nine of a fox’s white tails.

 _You’re a long way from Ionia_ , she thought. Something moved nearby. A sound like armor crunching or wood splintering in a definite direction. The fox vanished into discrete safety. Katarina sprinted into the danger. The pursuit was short, and the result awful.

She did not find men moving. What she saw was a machine, some Zaunite mess of metal and magic and steam. But it was in the side of a tree, as if the wood had grown around it. Then, right before her eyes, the tree moved. It didn’t grow. The wood simply opened and consumed that metal thing, crushing it with a horrible noise. As horrifying as hungry trees were, she was more afraid of humans, and she wouldn’t be the only person who’d heard that noise.

Katarina turned to run, and came face to face with a corpse and the horror on its face. In the cover of the metal crunches, another tree had uprooted itself to chase her. The face of its last victim was already deformed and cracked. The Hextech logo on his hardhat was the last she saw of him as the tree lunged and opened. She dodged and sprinted as gnarled wood closed over the Zaunite Foreman.

The crashing of trees did not follow her, but she was still in a forest. It was that dilemma- taking concealment among carnivorous plants- that was her undoing. The next crunch was not a tree. But damn, this Demacian was built like one. A thick trunk and squared jaw burst from the bushes, bellowing his allegiance.

“DEMACIA!”

He cleaved air where Katarina dodged. Tree branches buffeted them and snapped in the confusion. Mud slid under their feet as their fists swiped through each other’s hair. The forest’s unnatural silence quieted everything but the battle roar within her and the grunts and slaps of bone against wood against flesh. The trees had risen into the melee. Leaves and twigs covered her face as her arms swung wildly, trying to find her opponent.

Then the wood stopped, retreated, froze. And they were trapped, she and the Demacian, surrounded in a clearing that had isolated them within a wall of arbors. They had taken more than the retreat.

  
  


The Demacian’s hands were searching for a weapon- his eyes found it. A tree was swallowing it with one of his pauldrons.

Katarina couldn’t hold her smile as she drew her blade. She also couldn’t draw her blade. It was gone. The trees had pilfered the metal from her skin. Now it was the Demacian who laughed- some retributive spite. Then his fists rose and his center of gravity dropped into a fighting stance.

Katarina had met a lot of counts, captains, and creeps in Noxus. None of them had been able to square off against her. She’d wanted a better man, better built and with a confident fighting stance like this guy. But she’d wanted to meet him on better terms.

“Back off, Woman!” he called.

Her family, and the remainder of society, had taught her to avoid a fair fight. _What would Cassie do?_

“I don’t bite,” she tried.

Her hands raised, hips cantered, eyes batted. It sounded better coming from her sister; The Energy Tzar from Piltover had literally eaten out of her sister’s hand for the rest of the night. This guy just cocked his head at her and made a mean face. Not mean. Incredulous.

“Katarina Du Couteau?” he shouted.

The distance between them was subtly folding. She could probably steal another meter before he noticed her footwork. What little she had learned about efficiency of motion worked best slowly. But a short distance she could do in a single blink. Shunpo, her instructor had called it. Efficiency of motion taught by gods to men to her. But none of that mattered now that she wasn’t moving. She brushed a finger over her ear, faux-flattered.

“You’ve heard of me?”

She fluttered her eyes. His fluttered over her feet, matching them to rocks, leaves, and landmarks that didn’t match. He knew.

_Now or never._

Air whipped around her as she lunged, and her fist lashed out, but he ducked the strike. His counter met air as she sidestepped him and resumed her distance with another burst of motion. Her hair settled chestward as she landed. Her hair pin had been metal, and was now tree food.

“You were in the blast radius,” the Demacian called.

“Do I get to know your name?”

“You should be dead.”

“Don’t expect things from me,” she cooed. Her stance was down. The Demacian was big, muscles hard like armor, and he didn’t move any smoother than an ox. She had the mobility. She could afford the show.

The Demacian charged, jabbing air and correcting too slowly. But she couldn’t win without doing damage herself. Katarina pulled out of his range, tried to keep him talking while she thought.

“How do you know I’m not my sister?”

He wasn’t falling for it. His footwork caught up, and he was matching her sidesteps now, slowly closing the distance. But in his silence, another voice spoke. An eerie whisper shivered through leaves.

“ _He saw your debut from afar. He wanted the chance to meet you._ ”

His shock (He changed his stance to meet the voice) was the whisper’s confirmation. The Demacian checked his sides for the voice, then back to Katarina, over her shoulders. She couldn’t see it behind him, either. Who, then, was in her corner?

She remembered the signs she had passed. Voices and lies and strange whispers. She remembered Sander Grieve’s words. He had been afraid of Grieve telling her something- that someone had escaped. But who?

Her head bobbed through jabs. Feet shuffled. “Prophecy” bounced in her mind. _Kill the Vanguard. All of them. All of them,_ her father had repeated. She dodged more jabs, parried the last and countered, then cleared the distance.

Whispers voiced her thoughts as she had them. Secrets uttered through foliage, rising in cohesion and volume. And finally, they issued their challenge.

“ _Ask him._ ”

And she did. The Demacian had paused, to see who was speaking, to cover his back.

“Who are you? What’s your name?” she called. And the sultry afterthought, “it’s only fair.”

This secret, the forests voices did not reveal. The Demacian nodded.

“ _It’s only fair,_ ” the voices repeated.

He answered, his voice broad and deep, clear like his ocean-blue eyes.

“Garen Crownguard.”

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Peace was not an option. The only words exchanged now were insults and curses. Katarina rubbed blood from her mouth and parried another jab. Shunpo carried her away to clear her head. The last hit was more than she knew she could take. Their weapons had been stolen by the trees. Their fight had been contained. But the forest's good intentions would not outdo the evils of fanatical humans.

Crownguard still had a functional eye to track her with. He was a bit hard of hearing now, though. He loaded another incredulous glare while Katarina spit out his second ear.

“You said you don’t bite!”

“You can have a free one back,” she teased.

Her head cocked to expose a smooth neck. Then she staggered without balance.

Grappling being his stronger suit, Garen lunged, wrapping his arms around Katarina’s waist, and carried them both into the ground with his committed weight. Her desperate blows against the back of his head meant nothing, but he found his hands trapped under her body while she pummeled her fists against him and slandered his nation.

“Gold-hoarding, Pious, Prick!”

“Murderer! Assassin! You care nothing for justice!”

“ _You_ murdered _Sion_! You _murdered_ him! I never murdered anyone!”

“Nila Hawkmoon!”

The scuffle stopped, Katarina dual-shocked: by the depth of his knowledge- she hadn’t even remembered the name- and by a connection. She’d tried to ask a Hawkmoon boy for a dance. Now she understood why her father had to remove her from the ball. Katarina turned a suspicious eye into Garen.

“Have you been studying me?”

His face twisted in outrage, then untwisted- acknowledging the truth.

He conceded, “Yeah,” And headbutted her.

She checked it with her own crown, punishing them both, and lashed out at his throat. Garen backpedalled the strike, seeking distance while his vision focused. Katarina rolled over onto her knees, gripping her head and presenting a target. The feint wasn’t too obvious for Garen.

He kicked and felt her roll away with his leg in tow, felt the ground slap his back, felt her weight strike his throat knee-first. Felt cloth was the only cover above his chest. But a man his size was a mountain, most dangerous when it rolled.

Katarina was swept under in the whirl. He pushed her down before she had her balance, and sank to his knees over her. Katarina was pinned now, defenseless, in the place she had sworn to her father to never be. Garen grabbed at her arms, trying to restrain her fully while he gagged through a collapsed windpipe.

"Wait!"

She hadn't imagined her voice that way, but her options had suddenly dwindled. She used a spiked bracer to strike at the hand that was holding her wrist, adding, "I don't kill everything I touch! Noxus takes prisoners- prisoners we don't _execute._ "

She spit thick mucous at his face, too heavy to swallow and breathe through. The fight was already wearing on them.

"I know all about your arena," Garen gasped. He backhanded her face, finally breathing, stunning her long enough to secure both of her wrists in one of his grasps. He pinned her hands above her head and growled, "A trial and sentence has more dignity than being pitted unarmed against wild beasts."

His facts weren't exactly straight, but she didn't have the breath to correct him. Her head shook. She was beyond caring.

"Just... people... like you," she gasped. "Optional."

Garen found a stone with his free hand and lifted it to her face.

"Yeah. Well."

He breathed; raised the stone.

"We only... execute people... like you. Surrender."

Endorphins wild and death beckoning, Katarina found herself trying to suppress a giggle.

"Go ahead," she laughed. "Murderer."

Garen scowled- "You people know nothing of justice-" and raised his rock the extra inch to strike. But the next voice to speak from the trees stopped him. The voices before were anonymous whispers. This one was familiar. The young light mage Katarina had freed. Her solemn voice brushing through every leaf and petal for all to hear: "My people know nothing of mercy."

She wasn’t the only one who recognized it. Garen Crownguard was checking his six again, pushing his weight down on her arms and swiveling his head around to find the speaker.

A memory struck him, his sister being carted away by soldiers, her tiny frame thrashing in their grip. She screamed his name, and he turned away, accepting his mother's hand on his shoulder. Garen shook the thought free. It wasn't real. He hadn't been there. He was in the military academy already. It wasn't his fault. He would have stopped them.

Katarina felt the grim specter departing her as Garen's certainty wavered. She drove a knee at his crotch, freeing her hands long enough to knuckle the nerve on his neck, forcing his hand numb and the rock down. She struck again at his windpipe. His balance kept, however, and she soon found that his hands were squeezing her throat. The earth was swimming around her, blood no longer bringing oxygen to her brain. Her arm moved of its own training, knuckling against his throat and nerve, trying to loosen his grip. In those final moments of darkness creeping at her vision, she couldn't help but think that she should have surrendered.

The forest swam with commotion as fires in Kalamanda stirred up wind through the leaves. The humans were fighting again, their reach extended beyond their grasp by the strike of flint against steel and magic against life. Legions of men stormed through homes, cutting down cows and people alike, rending bone and sinew. But they did not touch the forest. Here, where the voices and creatures had gathered, were only two humans and an audience.

Their armaments removed, their quarrels resolved, they still fought to the death. They hadn’t been reasoned into the situation, and they would not be reasoned out of it.

The forest remained only to observe, to see proud creatures destroyed by themselves, by their nature. But while the forest had exhausted its perspective, a foreign creature lent its paws to the dirt. A nine-tailed fox from a distant land had brought with it an unknown magic to use.

The small quadruped had scaled the arboreal barrier to observe the fight, and out from the bushes it now leapt to bite Garen's hands. Vicious snarls tore flesh. The pain rended his focus, and Katarina gasped as his grip failed. He tried grabbing Katarina's neck again, only to have the fox dart at him from his other side and chomp his other hand. Katarina was panting now, regaining her breath and vision. She knuckled at the tender above Garen's hip, trying to loosen his position on top of her, budging him in effort with the tugging fox. Air burned in her lungs and the headache proved her place in the realm of strife and pain.

Garen's balance was over and off her with a push. It was only moments later that the fox bit her, securing its grip on her ankle just long enough to infect and flee. Garen panted and groaned, his thumbs twitching under damaged nerves. Katarina only sputtered and choked, trying to muster enough strength to roll over and get up. The vines around them lay flat and warm with their activity.

Katarina was in no position to worry about where Garen had gone, so she mused over that instead. She couldn't feel the cold of adrenalin or air. She was warm, cozy even, as if the warmth was spreading throughout her. Garen felt likewise, but Katarina was within his reach and vision. He grabbed vines in that direction and crawled, pulling himself toward her. She kicked at him lightly, sensing his presence; hurting him, but not beyond what he was already feeling. Any effort he made to grab her ankle was equally futile with his thumbs failing. She kicked several more times before she was finally too tired, and Garen crawled his way to her until he too, finally, was done. They lay there, panting and exhausted, staring at each other with the absolute terror of knowing that they could not defend themselves. It was only a matter of who got up first. It had come to that moment of grace where mercy would be begged for and not granted.

The forest spoke again, finally in its own, gravelly voice.

“This world is so strange. You humans build wonders from nothing, and raze the marvels of nature. What do you see in each other? Not strangers? Not lovers? How can two, like-minded, of the same species, find quarrel?”

The trees were talking. Or the wind blowing in their leaves was faking a voice. Or magic. There was no satisfactory explanation. Katarina’s focus was elsewhere, anyways.

The reflection of sharp metal was beside her. A blade- a throwing knife dropped from her hopper when the tree branches had stolen their weapons. Garen could not see as she retrieved it. But the forest spirit knew every ripple in its mud.

“Bwahahaha! A blade? You don't understand, human. I... am... ancient! You are nothing more than an insect to me! Draw blood in this forest and you will never escape! Oh! Oho! Fine then! Kill each other. But never question to the gods what sorrows and joys were destined to free beings. You always have a choice.”

And the voice abandoned them. In the silence, Garen and Katarina, Katarina and Garen, the pride and joy of sworn enemies who couldn't remember their oaths, were left breathing in contemplation. Katarina had her respite. She rose to her knees and crawled to her opponent, closing a short distance quickly. Garen rose, but his armor slowed him. Little effort heaved Katarina over his pauldron and onto his chest. He could only stare through one, wide eye as she pulled herself face to face with him. He tried reaching a hand to her throat, where he was only strong enough to keep it there. She tried raising the dagger, and found that she couldn't get through the injury in her shoulder blade. The scent of his sweat was distracting her, filling that warmth, overpowering.

But his hand glided past her throat to the back of her neck. She raised the blade, almost high enough to strike. His hand grasped. She reared to strike. It happened like a bolt of lightning- not her strike, but the strike of an impossible memory coursing into her mind. She had been traveling a market in Zaun by herself. But she had never been. A merchant twice her age and half as attractive had not stepped from imagined shadows, nor opened his coat to reveal pouches of strange liquids.

"Nine-tails aphrodisiac," he hadn’t muttered. " _Very_ powerful."

 _Nine-tails_ drifted through her mind. The fox. The bite.

Garen pulled her down into an embrace with his lips. The blade was discarded and the kiss was returned, and somewhere at the edge of Kalamanda's forest, a fox made its escape to the eastern shores and home. The forest spirit's parting: “I see the wisdom in that.”

Powerful indeed: the spell, or charm, or substance was overpowering every urge to kill that they had. Katarina's chest pressed flush with Garen's spent muscles. He bulged elsewhere. Hard and soft flesh rubbed.

Katarina still wanted revenge for the ache in her head. She drew blood from Garen's bottom lip while he freed her breasts. Pain replaced death and was inflicted without mercy. He rolled them over so she was beneath him, chest thrusting forward in pleasure while his hands tore the tight leather armor from her body. Blood dripped from his mouth, her bite being the closest a killer could come to romance. He tried to hate her for it; to not be aroused as it smeared across her nipples. But the armor fell from his body and lowered his guard for her claws. Katarina ran her fingers up his chest, feeling the muscles ripple with desire and fear at her touch, and rewarded them with her nails. He groaned through his tongue into her mouth, tasting and feeling the mixture of oxidizing blood and heavy saliva.

He was buried in her neck, inhaling her arousal, feeling her heat- blue eyes absorbing her glow; flushed face; nipples hard. She sang a moan, licked the copper from his blood and tasted the current. She rode the lightning in thrusts.

Memories folded around them. Garen was pushing up every dress she’d worn. She was taking him over every table he’d folded his hands on. Demacia’s chapel bells rang as he pushed her into them. He could sense her softness.

He heard her as wet slaps, and moist skin smacking together, felt her as squelched clenching and walls.

Their writhing was a haptic feast. Her quivering, a silent violin. His moans heard in her loins.

Around them, the creatures of Kalamanda's forest had gathered in awe. Bog lights and sprites came together with lightning bugs and luminoles to glow and shine in the hot winds of war and the warm breath of sex, staring in wonder at the strangest of all creatures and the many fluids a pair could produce. The spectacle ended with great moaning and heaving, like an erupting mountain casting off its flowers, and left the two warriors panting again; this time unafraid, their tender, spent kisses dotting each other's remaining flesh as they lay nude in scarlet foliage. The thorns of flowering vines had carved them to near death and bled them until their hearts pumped almost nothing. And it was then, in that moment of bliss, of agony, that they finally surrendered. The spell faded, leaving them exhausted and guilty, betrayed by their own bodies and hearts and minds. Garen rested his hand on her back, feeling the weight of her head on his chest and the painfully rapid thump of his dying heart.

"You're still a murderer," he whispered.

She bit him. Gently or as hard as she could, he didn't know. But she whispered back, "You too... Paragon."

Garen laughed- actually laughed as he felt the blood oozing from his flayed skin and the daggers on the ground lodged into his back. Katarina's blood was rolling off of his chest, through him in some places.

"Paragon," he chuckled lightly. "What does Noxus call me?"

"'Executioner.' We had one, before the revolution."

Garen smiled, slow and grim. His vision was fading, gray static replacing the red mist around his peripheries, when a funny thought suddenly struck him. The disappointed image of his mother glared at him as he murmured, "Don't take this... the wrong way..."

Katarina crawled several inches up his chest, bringing her ear closer to his fading voice. A strange reversal of her rage left worry in its place.

"But... I think..." Words failed him until he decided on a simpler course.

"War."

Katarina smiled now, feeling the warmth fade from her body as death joined their bed. The voices from the tree tried to answer before her, but had underestimated the desperate speed of the unrequited. So in perfect unison with the forest’s voice, she whispered,

"Maybe in another life."

Katarina found her vision fading and eyelids falling in the most comfortable place she could think to die: Last woman standing, alone, pressed against the cooling body of her enemy.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Garen woke to the sounds of pain and panic. The forest was silent around him, but a tiny war raged nearby. His sound ward was blaring from the ground. The shredded remains of his arm reached for it, Perseverance more than anything keeping him alive while the screams of dying and desperate men reached out through the arcane channels of the device. Misery loves company. He clipped the ward to his ear, felt it fall to the ground. His ear was gone.

 _She bites_ , he remembered.

He clipped the ward to his other ear.

"Gods damnit! Where's that sharpshooter?"

"Pots! POTS!"

"Friendly cavalry incoming. Casters check your targets."

Katarina was gone. In her place, a small nest had been woven. His kit was within- sword, armor, pack. A glass bottle, red liquid still sloshing from motion, poked from the top. The scene formed in his mind, and Garen groaned when he recognized it. His first religious course, Ascended Saints, and the story of the Kite Soldier, Demacia’s Mightiest Knight. The nest, the male form, and forest were his symbols.

Thoughtful trees- an uncomfortable thought. So he ignored the memory of them moving, took for granted that they no longer had him surrounded, pretended that his blanket of leaves was man-made, and imagined that he wasn’t naked. Then he sat up. The blanket was a kite. Seraph peppers, another symbol, had grown around him. The illusion of nature had now been shattered.

Garen popped the stopper on a potion and released the air-hole on the bottom to shotgun it down his throat while voices- people- echoed and screamed in his ear.

"Jarvan! Back! Your flank- Damnit! Second platoon, advance and cover!"

General Laurent’s voice again. A hard surge in Garen’s veins told him the potion was working; His blood was returning. He felt the tingle where his ear reformed. Ectoplasm filled his wounds, simulated flesh. He knew he would have enough time to get out of the fight before entropy dispersed it again. Garen grabbed the next bottle and waited for its moment.

_One, Ser-pen-tine. Two, Ser-pen-tine._

“Repeat: Houses are trapped-”

_Six, Ser-pen-tine. Seven, Ser-pen-tine._

“Vanguard Alpha cannot extract. We're pinned at Kumu Nine. Heavy casualties. Precious cargo in tow."

Prince Jarvan Lightshield, the younger, finally spoke.

"Sit tight Alpha team. I’m bringing the cavalry."

_Ten, Ser-pen-tine. E-le-ven, Serpentine._

Garen uncorked the next bottle and waited with his hand over air hole, silent and passive to the plight of his friends. Exhaustion crippled his empathy.

"No-go, sir. We are moving south into cover. Rendezvous at Kumu Six."

"Jarvan, you foolhardy bastard! You're already cut off!"

General Laurent’s voice. Garen briefly remembered Laurent as the colonel guarding Fiora at a decade-old party.

_Fif-teen, Serpentine._

Garen shotgunned the second potion and reached for a third. A warm tingle in his extremities heralded the incredible pain of his senses returning. Hurried footsteps announced something worse: steel boots- heavy. Friendly. A rifle sounded, muffled unnaturally by the forest. No doubt the trees would react. There was no appropriate complaint or poetry. His only thought was, _Damn it_ , and a need to move. The twang and swish of a bolt responded as Quinn burst through bushes, blind firing.

Three Vanguard were behind her; Reihms and Orren were carrying another Vanguard. Quinn was dragging Garen into a nearby bush before he could do more than grab his nest. They stopped in the camouflage and she leaned into his ear.

"Noxus hot on us. They’re catching up.”

Garen nodded his understanding and guzzled the third potion while she added,

“Are you-? Garen, what-? Get dressed.”

Quinn was young- had spent her youth between lonely wilds and a DSB Convent. She’d never seen a man below the neck, and corrected that surprise by looking elsewhere. Those years at the convent alerted her to the other clues, though. The wonder in her eyes crossed her tongue.

“Last Rites of the Kite Soldier?”

Garen came back down from the chug and lifted his nest in both hands.

“Don’t fight. Trust me, we just have to outrun Noxus. Get out of the forest.”

“Garen, we can’t-“

“Now,” he ordered.

And though he wasn’t in uniform, he was in charge. It was a good call. The next Noxian shooter knew it first. He screamed.

“The trees! Oh gods!”

Garen was nude, carrying a nest half his size. He was beyond explaining himself. Quinn’s bamboozled expression only prompted him to shake his head. When they broke from the forest’s spell and landed on the road, Garen took a moment to armor up while Quinn whispered what little she’d gleaned.

“Raedsel Guard swarmed us. They were ready. The Commando team went to ground, but I don’t think anyone made it out. There’s already a Noxian battalion moving in the town.”

Garen grunted acknowledgment as he donned the last pauldron.

“Where are we?”

Orren had his map out already.

“Kumu 8, Sir.”

“We’re going south,” Garen barked.

They did. The rendezvous was brief and tragic. Willows hung low over a clearing. Soot and shit burned a warm summer air. Mudflies impregnated human corpses. Worms sought the horse carcasses. Jarvan was the last survivor of his charge. Vanguard Alpha, meanwhile, was just Garen, Quinn, and three others. And still, retreat was not an option- Jarvan’s orders. Quinn stepped into the conversation angrily, out of line.

“We’re here for an extraction! You said there was cavalry!"

“There was,” Jarvan smiled. He set a hand on Garen’s shoulder, and another on Quinn’s. “And there still is, as long as we keep our feet.”

Few people said “no” to Jarvan, and he never listened to them.

"We're already cut off anyway,” he shrugged. “We're already behind enemy lines. You can walk home, or Summoner Carin can teleport us out.”

Jarvan tapped two fingers against his forehead. Garen had missed it in the haze of smoke, but an arcane glow backlit Jarvin’s eyes. He wasn't alone. Everyone's ears perked up at the promise.

"Alright. Well, we’re with you to the death, Sir,” Garen conceded. “What's going on?"

Jarvan shared a guilty look with his answer.

"We lost a spy in Noxus last week- we thought we did. But as soon as the battle started she lit up her beacon. She's in a tavern called The Hasty Hammer."

Jarvan shot a look to Garen, who sorted it all out.

"Luxanna," Garen blurted.

Jarvan nodded, scratching the back of his head uneasily.

"We have to get to her before anyone else does."

Jarvan was not known for thinking clearly, but Garen had come to expect better tactical decisions than this one.

"She’ll surrender. Just sort her out of the prisoners," he hissed.

But the error was worse than that. Jarvan's smile tightened. A step back. His head shook.

"Noxus is disguising fireteams as families. We were losing too many people to ambushes. Before Lux lit up, we... _I_... ordered that no prisoners be taken."

  
  


It only ever got worse with Jarvan. They moved under orders, Jarvan leading and Garen at his side while Quinn kept the flank. Orren and Reims took up the middle with Sion's head and heart bouncing against their hips. Jarvan's route crept up Kalamanda’s only road, a stone circle straight into town, where the burning horizon popped into immediate relevance.

Garen could see the battle less than a klick ahead of them. The silhouettes of mounted lieutenants signaling maneuvers to columns of men popped from squadrons of shadows clashing in door to door combat. The outlying structures had already been demolished, and many of the town structures were now being raided. These were proper buildings, many of them even Demacian in design, their walls slowly caving to fire.

Civilian motion bumped past them, but Jarvan’s retinue blended in the chaos. The dark orange tint of a night lit by embers, or the red hue of spilled blood, disguised the Demacians. Jarvan pointed to the largest building on the street- two floors- and shouted something drowned by the local agony. He didn't need to be heard.

  
  


The Hasty Hammer Inn had a heavy door, which slammed to the ground as Orren bolted through it. Quinn brought a crossbow down on Garen and Jarvan’s heels as they fanned into the room. Women and children had huddled inside for safety, cramping into the available space in a local pub.

 _Of all places_.

But they were an amorphous mob, not worthy of the benefit of the doubt- only of protection. The barman was what stood out- a burly man, his angry glare like a Drill Sergeant whose vicarious life was being fumbled. He had watched the Vanguard breach his door.

“ _Schlampig_ ,” he muttered.

Jarvan hefted his lance uncomfortably, parsing the man’s tone, wishing he spoke Kalamandan. Garen did.

_Schlampig. Sloppy._

“He’s mocking us,” Garen grumbled.

Jarvan raised his weapon and resumed his authority in the room.

“Show me your hands! Everyone! Surrender!”

Unconditional and uncontested was the implication. But Jarvan’s shout did not impress the barman. This was a native Kalamandan. He had cups to wash, and took too much pride in his establishment to let a war interrupt him.

“Am gnut soldier anymore,” he explained.

It was the only phrase a Kalamandan needed.

“Jou vant ze Frauline, Funkeln,” the barman continued.

Garen spent a long time figuring out it was his own language being used. The Kalamandan tongue had developed, somehow, to be nothing like those around it.

“Fraul… What?”

Jarvan heaved an annoyed sigh onto Quinn. She licked her lips, trying to balance her aim with one hand- casting with the other. Her fingers sparked with blue mist. The barman nodded his appreciation and repeated.

“You are looking for the Demacian girl, yes? Short blonde? We call her ‘Sparkle.’ She is confused and very hurt.”

“Where!” Jarvan barked.

The barman leaned back, withdrawing his kindness. He knew whose side of the counter all the beer was on. Jarvin didn’t have a choice. He relented, pained, and lowered his weapon. Then he nodded as if bowing.

“Do you know where she is?” with kindness.

The barman nodded upstairs.

“First room on the left.”

It really was that simple. The door burst onto Luxanna. She was curled into a corner with her cloak, blonde locks obscuring her sobs. Garen’s sigh had been building since… Almost a year now since she’d been conscripted- three since he’d last been home. He released it now, despite Quinn at his side. Jarvan and the rest of the vanguard were downstairs or face-down in the mud.

Quinn nudged him with a hopeful smile.

“That’s her?”

“Yeah,” Garen grumbled. The barman had said Luxanna was injured. She had a habit of withdrawing from people when in pain, he remembered. Now was not the time to crowd her. He nodded to Quinn.

“Just give me a moment, Agent. I’ll get her moving.”

Quinn nodded out. But she barely made it to the stairs before turning back. Garen had heard it, too. Steel boots. Sprinting. The unmistakable trinketry of Demacian pikeman. Quinn brushed into the room and shattered the window with her weapon, training it on the squadron below. Garen crept up beside her to see. Jarvan, Orren, Reihms, and Lorell were already out front, arms presented.

Jarvan’s shouts were ignored.

“Lower your weapon! I am your prince! You! I order you to lower your weapon!”

The pikeman nearest Jarvan was sixteen, eighteen at most. He was clearly Demacian, and clearly facing his own prince. But he looked to his side for orders. His sergeant was chewing the insole of his cheek. Then he called out to Jarvan.

“We need to clear that building, Sir.”

“No! These are civilians! Lower your weapon!”

The pikemen shifted, checked each other’s faces.

“Sergeant, I’ve given you an order! Lower your weapons!”

Jarvan had been saddled with authority. Earning it was a skill he did not have. The pike sergeant stepped forward and nodded his challenge to Jarvan.

“Iron!”

A long silence. _Iron? A challenge phrase, maybe?_ Garen had not been briefed about challenge phrases. _Why would the Battalion need one?_

Quinn rolled her head to Garen. Her eyes and aim stayed down the sights.

“You better get down there,” she hummed.

“He doesn’t know the answer phrase?”

Garen had spent a long time alone in his doubt of Jarvan. As if on principle, The Prince never prepared for anything. Quinn’s eyes split from her target, and Garen saw she shared that doubt. Garen turned and sprinted the hall, fell with some grace down the stairs, and raised his shield as he crossed out the door. That was just long enough for Jarvan to make things worse. He did what was usually called thinking. Then he guessed.

“Fire?”

The pikemen gaped, eyes wide, and would have frozen without their sergeant’s rally.

“He’s one of them! He’s a light mage! Kill! KILL!”

The pikemen scrambled into and offensive and charged, committed. But their sergeant didn’t join. He- She- shimmered into another shape and turned to run. A bolt split the girl’s shoulders. Her last laugh blew a bubble in the mud. She had been Luxanna’s age- maybe less. Much less, now.

Garen breached the pike charge, checking a spearhead against his shield and dropping someone’s head. These were scrubs with little experience, but they had faith and numbers four-to-one.

Garen didn’t know how the fight progressed. He did not experience it in the moment, but dedicated sleepless nights to it for the rest of his life. In the moments after it, he was only dimly aware that everyone but Jarvan was dead.

Garen relieved him of command with a well-earned strike below the jaw. Quinn didn’t seem to object, or she didn’t bolt him for it.

Garen slipped on blood, grabbed the doorframe, and finally filled the pub’s entrance with his body. Fear was the general emotion inside. The barman stood out, broad arms wiping with vigor now. His boredom broke, and the hairs on his beard parted for an awful, knowing smile.

_I am not a soldier anymore._

What he saw in the situation, Garen didn’t know. Maybe dead Demacians got him excited. Maybe misery loves company. Garen’s weight creaked on the floorboards. Children scurried out of his path. Bodies huddled away from him. But he sheathed his sword and passed them for the stairs, mumbling under his breath, “You’re safe now.”

First door on the left. Luxanna cowered under her cloak in silence. The shattered window blew the smell of manure and human suffering through her hair. Garen sank onto the bed next to her, a hand on her head.

“You’re safe now,” he murmured.

Her lithe fingers reached out from the cloak. Bruised wrists. Blood. But her face was obscured, and left only the image of an unimaginable pain in Garen’s mind. No reality could be worse than Garen’s imagination. Only the truth could dispel it. So with a gentle nudge, he slipped her hood. A blonde wig fell aside.

Katarina pressed a dagger to his throat.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

“You aren’t LeBlanc.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“If you tell my father _anything_ I’ll…”

None of these lies were at Katarina’s disposal. She had been rescued, dragged from the forest by a helm with four eyes, eight when her vision had blurred.

Her mind refocused in a vivid dream of silence, somewhere cold that reeked of pig blood and human piss and thatch embers- A tavern bed, with Summoner Grieve’s hands over her. Bolts and blades screamed outside. Every few moments, the door slammed over non-combatants. Feet scuffled, and Katarina could hear gruff voices ordering them to stay hidden.

She was upstairs, body laid bare for the summoner to attend to. His decrepit fingers wrapped a wound beside her breast. Aside was nudged her arm and discomfort. Then a pause when Grieve realized she had woken. Some part of the summoner realized that she would be uncomfortable at his touch.

“It’s all just carnage to me,” was his bedside manner.

His hands worked magic over a fractured rib, grinding it slowly into place and reviving nerves. Inch by inch, he dragged her back to life. Then he left her at the doorstep, just as her eyes could finally rest open.

“I’m not a doctor,” he rasped.

But he was healing her, by some standard, and Katarina knew not to chasten charity. She knew not what to do about her predicament. Cassiopeia Du Couteau entered the room in her ball gown. Cruel pleasure spread over her face as she took in Katarina’s ruined form.

“You saved me,” Katarina managed.

Cassie smiled.

“What does Darkwill always say?”

This was not Cassie speaking. Nor was it Boram Darkwill. But the light mage mimicked both voices perfectly.

“In Noxus, death is a promotion.”

Then a rapid shift, and the light mage had taken on the form from before: the face from the tabloids.

“You aren’t-” Katarina stammered.

“I’m not LeBlanc. Yes. You’ve said. But I enjoy being her. Do you mind?”

She took a seat in the corner, behind Grieve, and handed him a periodical she’d finished. Katarina was too busy feeling her toes to feel surprise. _Who hands their trash to a Necromancer?_

“Will you need anything else, Matron?”

Grieve’s question was dismissed with a mere, “That’s all… For now.”

LeBlanc had a sultry cadence in her own voice. Her tongue whipped around the end of every sentence, promising pleasure to those who listen and obey. Her eyes stood like a heel on Katarina, all her weight focused into a point that needed making: _you are at my mercy_.

Katarina swallowed: blood, the fear of death, and a small piece of flesh that was probably supposed to stay up in her throat.

“That’s a sour look,” LeBlanc smirked.

Katarina’s eyes fell shut again under exhaustion. She didn’t enjoy accepting it- failure, nor being in the presence of a myth. Grieve, the most familiar person she had, had now left her with that myth. She especially did not enjoy the feeling of her forehead. It stood in contrast to the warm, living lips of her new matron. Katarina mustered strength to her eyelids again, and focused on the woman draped over her.

“You mean a great deal to me, Katarina. You’re special.”

Clear, perfect enunciation. Katarina could only cough as a reply.

“Your father wants me to carve an assassin out of you. _He_ wants something from _me_. Do you know what that means?”

Katarina shivered as The Matron’s lips nestled her earlobe.

“It means I own you. It means I get what I want, and Marcus gets what he wants.”

Another chill, this one raking her stomach. Katarina felt her hand, half-numb, being placed around a glass bottle. The red hue of a health potion sloshed inside. As a rich child, she couldn’t even dare a boy to sip one. From this side of death, she would have sucked it off a pig. But LeBlanc’s grip held her hand there.

“I have your life in my hands,” she whispered. “I have whatever power I care to take. That is my contract with you. When I order you to kill, you will carry it out or die trying. I do not have your father’s mercy, but I will give you more than he ever can. If you don’t like those terms, I’ll leave you here in peace.”

And she did, without warning, leave. There was no motion, only a sudden absence of being. A more focused mind would contemplate immediate survival. But Katarina felt and thought only of her immediate past. She sobbed. A part of her that remained in the past looked at the person she was now and scowled. She had been beautiful, face and virginity and _professionalism_ intact. She had a future. But she felt none of that person’s gloating superiority. The blanket was gone. Now she was naked in some tavern, and had freely given up what little information Demacia didn’t already have on her. She imagined Garen Crownguard, laughing with friends and pointing out intimate details on an anatomical chart. She could see her father, his face wracked in her pain. Something like disappointment, but in himself.

Then her vision focused, and she still saw him, erect in the doorway, deflating to her side. The stabbing pain at her heart was at least partly literal. She spit blood. Her vision swam. Marcus stopped at her side- the man with a presence that overshadowed death; the man who had fed her from a bottle. Now he uncorked a potion and took that post again.

He had rarely extended compassion before. Did she remind him of mother? Katarina accepted it and drank blood and life, feeling the two mix in her stomach and spread throughout her as pain. Marcus was still there when she came down from the ardent high, kneeling beside her.

“The trees move,” she mumbled. “They stole my weapons and tried to kill me.”

Marcus existed in his own conversations, and rarely shared his thoughts. But from the occasional slip, or moments later as Katarina reconstructed his reasoning, she could deduce his focus.

He only said, “You weren’t ready.”

She nodded, conceding the point, but froze when she saw the flicker of his nose, a sniff. And when his brow tightened, she could tell that he knew- at least knew something. He handed her another potion, produced from a bag that he had brought. He talked while she drank.

"You've been missing two hours. Everything else is on plan."

He fell into a patient silence, and Katarina couldn't help but feel that it was her job to fill it with something he could be proud of.

"I can do it," she wheezed. “You wanted me to kill Garen Crownguard. I can do it.”

He smiled at the enthusiasm, and patted her knee with a gloved hand.

"I'm glad to hear it, but..." his smiled warped, "Crownguard is not worth my daughter to me."

His gaze captured her, serious.

"I’ll understand if you want to cut your losses."

Katarina accepted and drank the third pot. Her father, _Her_ father, did not want her to fight. She drank and let the thought muddle around in her mind until it reached a conclusion.

"She’s LeBlanc."

Marcus did not confirm nor deny it. Katarina accepted another potion and chugged. What were fatal gouges in her skin became minor lacerations, zipping closed like the back of a dress.

“Your mother is dead,” he admitted.

Katarina didn't know how to respond, nor how to wrangle her father back into something she wanted to talk about. She nodded, feeling more than seeing her vision focus. Marcus the blob became Marcus the man, her father and his well-earned wrinkles. She felt him tracing her scar. His odor was the dignity in war: paper, ink, a fresh uniform, the subtle hint of old age.

“It was during the revolution. That was a bit before your time. You were… Two?”

He did not cry. But she felt the energy coursing through his hand into her scar. The pain of his memory evoked hers.

“She minded her home and her business. But she was royalty, by some distant, long-forgotten line of succession. Once the mobs knew that, it was just a matter of time. If the right person had been there… Just one person who did the right thing… Spoke up…”

The guilt tide had to be stopped. His face became a stone wall.

“Demacia isn’t taking prisoners tonight.”

A harsh and hasty swallow buried his humanity. His hand retracted. Only the soldier remained.

“You don’t have any clothes,” he noted.

“The trees-“

“Don’t-“

He stood to leave.

“Don’t,” he repeated. He washed his hands of the matter, rubbing them on his uniform, then turned out the door and accepted a package.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, Sir.”

The augmented voice of a Raedsel Guardsman, his four-eyed helm glowing through the cracked door. Katarina noted this without comment: Her father had no authority over Boram Darkwill’s personal unit. Marcus closed the door again and put the linens beside his daughter. Katarina had sat up now and wrapped the blanket over her form. She paused as details came to her. Marcus had set civilian garb at her side. Atop it were the silver lapels of a first lieutenant, and a pulsing gem.

“Get dressed.”

He dropped a bag of kit, hers- items recovered from the forest, now lovingly assembled.

“That gem is a beacon,” Katarina mused.

“The spy you let free. It was in one of her teeth.”

Marcus hadn’t left yet because he still had instructions for her. She could see it in his folded hands and straightforward posture.

“The Demacians are coming here to rescue her,” Marcus supplied.

She had been cold before. Now she froze. The connections reformed in her mind. Prophecy. Kill _all_ of the vanguard. _Him_. Katarina didn’t like fighting blind. She sought her father’s eyes.

“Why do I have to kill him? What’s special about Garen Crownguard?”

“Well, apparently, he commands an army of trees.”

Katarina had wondered from whom she inherited her sarcasm. Now it was her turn to heave Marcus’ tired sigh and counter, “I’m the one in mortal danger here. I think you should tell me about that prophecy.”

She knew he wouldn’t. Marcus grabbed the lapels and held them under her nose.

“These come with a commission. You can put them on when he’s dead. I am _ordering_ you to kill him. That’s all you need to know. There’s nothing in a prophecy that can stand against human will. Are you in, or not?”

Not long after, she was dressed, sitting alone under her blanket and still pondering that question. Marcus had to supervise the up-and-coming tactician commanding Noxus’ response. LeBlanc had an empire to destroy. Grieve had a date with corpses. Katarina pondered what she had. The thoughts muddled in her parlor, whispering quietly amongst themselves to solve the host’s puzzle.

_Garen Crownguard has studied my entire life._

_Demacia isn’t taking prisoners._

_These lapels are my career._

_LeBlanc is real and owns my soul._

An hour later, when the door burst in, she had no motivation to flinch. She felt the wig itching over her hair. Her blades stirred and her hand tightened over her new rank.

_I am only alive because of a necromancer’s magic._

_Am I truly alive?_

_This beacon represents home for that girl._

_My mother was murdered by her own country._

Garen flew down the stairs. His companion trained her crossbow out the window. It was here that Katarina finally focused. Her father’s words, “Demacia isn’t taking prisoners,” came out louder.

Katarina let her cloak slip down. The crossbow-woman at the window was distracted, eying her targets and whispering a mantra to steel her nerves. She couldn’t see the assassin creeping at her back. She couldn’t see when the shock caught Katarina in place. The sound of her hissing “ _what?”_ was covered by the bow-woman’s own hurried whispering.

“There is no god for cowards. There is no god for traitors. There is no god for the empty handed. There is…”

No God for the slow. The impossible played out before them: Gold on Gold, and Katarina saw that the mantras had failed. Quinn fired a single shot at the Noxian mage, then Katarina fired hers.

Quinn crumpled from a pommel strike to the neck. Body-under-bed was good enough for now. Katarina had to see this battle through. She had already heard, but her ears couldn’t believe it.

Gold on gold. There was Garen Crownguard, lopping off a Demacian’s head in defense of Noxian citizens. He stood tall, shield high against the mob. He stood where Marcus had desperately wanted anyone to. He stood in the one place Katarina could not kill him.

So when that battle ended and he fell for her disguise, she did not. When Garen kneeled and found himself balanced forward onto the edge of her blade, she gripped his scalp and held him there with a bewildered stare.

In her grip, stuffed with his hair, were the lapels of a First Lieutenant; she sat a hop and a skip from never being infantry again. In her pocket hummed a homing bead, a symbol to someone of home. And now in her lap sat her mortal enemy, a man who had shown tender kindness to her disguise, and the ultimate sacrifice to the complete strangers huddled in the pub below him.

And to some degree, he was now her man. Her blade pressed in against his throat, and she smiled into his shock.

“Miss me?”


End file.
